


The Devil's Currency

by fadingtales



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dream Sex, F/M, Shower Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-10-02
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2017-11-18 06:54:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 47,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/558125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadingtales/pseuds/fadingtales
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Klaus catches Caroline following him, he offers her a bargain for the younger Salvatore. But when you trade with the devil, you have to deal with the devil's currency. AU loosely set after episode 3x02. A/N: rated M in ch. 3 and 8. !DISCONTINUED! Please see last chapter for author's note.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Inspired by the lovely Kristina's gif found here: candicemorgans.tumblr.com/post/10954846982

He's not amused when he catches her following them.

For a little baby vampire she's cheeky and impertinent. He slams her head against the wall to knock some respect into her. She spits in his face.

Strangely he's starting to find himself much more impressed.

"What shall I do with you?"

"I have a suggestion. Let. Me. Go," she snarls, her hands clawing at his.

He releases his chokehold and she collapses on the ground coughing.

Stefan motions towards her, but he raises an arm and Stefan stops, hand outstretched. The two exchange a meaningful glance that doesn't escape his notice.

"What pray tell, sweetheart, did you think you could accomplish by following us?"

She answers by silently glaring at him. Her eyes flicker momentarily to Stefan who tries to keep his expression indifferent. Klaus glances at his companion and suddenly a wicked and lovely thought forms in his head.

"Let me guess… you're here to save poor little Stefan from big bad me."

He crouches down so that he could be eye level with her and tilts her chin up with a finger.

"How's this… I'll let him go."

Her eyes widen at him and the corner of his lips quirks upward in a Cheshire grin.

"If you can take his place," he finishes.

"Kla-" Stefan begins, but once again Klaus silences him with a withering look.

"I'll do it," she says.

"I was hoping you'd say that," he grins.

Almost immediately she regrets her rash words. Klaus nods towards one of his minions and they bring out several whimpering girls.

"Stefan, why don't you demonstrate for our little vampire what it means to be a true Ripper?"

Stefan avoids her eyes when he walks over to one of the girls. Even so, he can feel her hot gaze boring holes into the back of his head.

Damon had told her several times about Stefan and his Ripper days. The stories don't measure up to the reality.

She cringes at the carnage, finding herself strangely mesmerized and revolted at the same time. Not that Klaus would allow her to look away. Not even when one of the girls turn to her and pleads for her life with tears streaming down her face. She's young and blonde, probably was just on her way home from school when she got snatched up. Caroline imagines that was probably exactly how she had once looked when Damon had fed on her. Pitiful and terrified. She probably won't be forgetting this girl's scream for a long time.

"You should really stop sulking," Klaus chastises. "And you can leave if you don't want to see it."

Of course leaving would have meant that she was swallowing her words and giving up. If anything as a human Caroline had been stubborn, as a vampire she'd become obnoxiously obstinate and resolute in her pigheadedness.

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Are you sure you still want to rescue him? It looks like he's perfectly content where he is."

"I said that I am not going anywhere," she bites out through gritted teeth.

"Good," Klaus answers pleasantly. He watches as Stefan finishes his handiwork with satisfaction.  
"Because tomorrow it'll be your turn, so don't disappoint me."

He motions over one of his loyal witch bodyguards and tells them to go get her cleaned up. He doesn't want to be seen in the presence of riffraff.

He watches with amusement as she shoots him a final glare as they take her away.

"This should be interesting."

Stefan grabs his arm as he passes by.

"Don't mess with Caroline. I'm not going to go back. So just leave her alone."

Klaus pulls his arm away and turns to the younger Salvatore.

"You don't get a say in what I do or do not do."

"There are other people that you can play with, but not her. Whatever sick little game you're playing at, stop. Or I'll-"

Klaus chuckles darkly. "Are you threatening me, Salvatore? You're showing affections for the wrong girl. It should be your doppelganger that I would worry about."

Stefan swallows nervously.

"You should work on that poker face of yours, Stefan. You're extremely transparent. But then again, maybe it wasn't Elena who you were trying to keep me away from. Cheer up, mate. I'll share this one."

He pats Stefan on the shoulder almost endearingly and walks away. Stefan watches him leave with fisted hands by his side.

In this wicked game, love is the devil's currency.


	2. Chapter 2

He doesn't know why he puts up with the charade of honoring her promise. She would be a terrible replacement for Stefan. For the first few days together she can't even properly finish a kill and she would sulk every single time they came back from a hunt.

She is halfhearted at best and it angers him when he knows she has potential for so much more.

When she fails to kill for the fifth time his temper flares.

"Stop, Stefan. Let her do it." His voice is an angry growl and Stefan obligingly steps back.

This time the girl is a brunette and a disturbing thought crosses her mind. She looks a little like Elena. Caroline stares down at her blankly as the girl gasps shallow breathes, her throat a bloody mess, a pool of blood surrounds her head like a halo.

"It's not like it's your first time. Kill her," Klaus presses.

It should be easier. She remembers it being easier than this that first time she killed. But staring down at this girl who could have easily been her several months ago she can't bring herself to do it.

"You kill or you starve. There won't be any blood bags waiting for you."

She swallows and glances over at Stefan who tries his best to keep his face expressionless, but she can see the sympathy in his eyes. Klaus quickly obstructs her view.

"Do not look to him for help," He drawls. "Only you can do this."

"I can't," she shakes her head.

Klaus strides over and rips out the girl's heart. He hold it up to her before dropping it to the ground with a sickening splat.

"Then what good are you?"

His eyes are the color of green sea foam in the winter, collected by crashing tides. They're cold and cruel and they cut more than his words.

He turns his back on her and suddenly the need to prove him wrong overwhelms her.

He stops abruptly when she blocks his path and smacks him across the face with as much force as she can possibly muster. The impact results in a sickening crack and a splatter of blood across her knuckles.

"Caroline!" Stefan rushes towards her side, but Klaus is faster.

The shock of it reverberates much more than the actual act. He wipes the blood from his mouth and then calmly wrapped his hands around her neck, lifting her off the ground.

"You're a monster."

"We're both monsters, darling. I'm just a better one."

She chokes and kicks and struggles against his hold.

"I gave you a chance, little vampire. You failed."

"Let her go, Klaus," Stefan growls.

He ignores him and just tightens his grip on the blonde vampire.

"What's stopping me from killing you right now and cutting my loses, hm?"

"I know why you're building an army," she rasps.

He scoffs and lips curl into a condescending smile. "Oh? Enlighten me."

"For the war against him."

The shock of her answer loosens his grip and with a solid kick to the chest she tears away and runs as fast as she could towards the door. He only barely manages to block her path and slam the door shut, narrowly missing her fingers.

Immediately Stefan is between the two of them.

"Get out of my way, Stefan."

"Leave her alone! She just a silly girl, she doesn't know what she's talking about."

"I know where he is," Caroline croaks, rubbing her sore throat and completely ignoring Stefan. "And I'll tell you what I know... if you do what I say."

Stefan whips his head back to look at her, fury in his eyes. She stares past him at Klaus.

Klaus lets out a laugh. "You're making demands now?" His expression instantly darkens. "What's stopping me from compelling the answer out of you and then killing you after?" He growls.

Suddenly the table has been turned on him and he doesn't enjoy not being in control.

"Just try it and see," she quips. "I'd die before you get the answer out of me and then you'll be back to square one."

She started taking daily doses of vervain since the day she began following them. In the past two days she's double that dosage.

"If you are lying to me, little vampire, I will end you. And I promise that it will be slow."

"That doesn't sound like the promise I asked for."

"Caroline, don't push it," Stefan growls.

Klaus paces back and forth, sending her death glares while she massaged her sore throat. She has on an irritably smug smile that he wants to slap off.

"Fine. What do you want?"

"I want to go home. Back to Mystic Falls. And I want you to promise not to kill or harm either me or Stefan. And our friends are off limits as well."

"You have my word. I'll let you both go once you tell me what you know. And I could care less about your little pals."

"I'd like that in writing please."

Klaus fixes her with a murderous glare.

"Caroline," Stefan warns.

"Fine," Caroline acquiesces. "We'll sort out the details later. But first I'd like to get cleaned up and shower. Oh and a blood bag would be nice."

Klaus lets out a short harsh laugh. "I'm surprised that you still have an appetite. Seeing how you've refused the fresh produce I've provided."

"I'd prefer my blood bags, thanks."

"I hope for your sake, little vampire, that you're not overplaying your hand," Klaus drawls. Turning to Stefan he commands the younger vampire to take Caroline back to the apartment and procure her a blood bag from the local clinic.

Stefan nods obediently and watches until Klaus disappears around the corner before making any movements towards Caroline.

She takes his hand when he extends it and pulls herself off the ground.

Stefan doesn't let go of her hand when he helps her up.

"I hope you know what you are doing."

She prays that she does too.

xxx

She's surprised at how easily it was to sneak into the warehouse while Klaus and Stefan were off on a hunt. She effortlessly compels the lone guard and makes her way towards the coffin in the center of the room. Klaus likes to keep his latest collection piece close. The others are placed elsewhere.

The darkness of the warehouse and with a singular light shining on the coffin in the middle of the room gives her the creeps. She glances around nervously expecting something to pop out, her nerves getting rattled by the eeriness of it all. She approaches the coffin with trepidation and exhales a breath before opening it.

The heavy lid falls to the side and nestled inside is a single satin pillow with a slight dent marking a previous occupancy.

"You're late."

She starts at the sound of his voice and whirls around, releasing a small gasp. For an undead heart, hers was beating at jack rabbit speed.

"You startled me!"

She breathes a sigh of relief and presses at hand to her chest as if the gesture would slow her heart.

Elijah stares back at her, a small smile curving his lips. He toys idly with the dagger in his hand.

"It took me longer than I thought."

She notices a blood stain on his collar and frowns.

"You didn't kill any of the guards did you? I thought it was strange that there was only one outside."

The last thing she needed to deal with is a dead body.

"Don't worry, I restrained myself," Elijah replies. "They're merely sleeping it off."

"Well, you still look a little grey."

She reaches inside her pocket and draws out a blood bag that she tosses in his direction. He catches it with effortless ease and grace. It's an action that reminds her startlingly of his brother and she tries to suppress a shudder.

"Has everything gone well on your end?" He asks as he tears an opening into the bag and begins to drink.

"If you don't count him almost killing me earlier today, then yes."

"But you're alive. He must be more fond of you than you think," He smiles enigmatically. "Klaus doens't often show mercy."

"Barely," she drawls. "And the kink in my neck begs to differ."

"He's agreed to our terms?"

"Something like that... We're heading back to Mystic Falls tomorrow."

"How long has it been?"

"About two months since the sacrifice."

"Two? We've missed two opportunities of a full moon."

"Yeah, well... finding him after he took off with Stefan proved to be more difficult than I thought. If you had followed Plan A this wouldn't have happened."

"I agree, I was foolish and I apologize for the complications... but I do not regret it. Now I know that Klaus has the rest of my family and I plan on rescuing them."

"Uh huh..."

Caroline rolls her eyes and cross her arms. Truth be told, she's still pretty skeptical of this little scheme they've conjured up. There is no backup plan this time. This is their last chance at killing Klaus and she's not quite sure they can trust Elijah a second time, but what choice do they have?

"Save the apologies. We have work to do. Where's Bonnie?

As if calling her name had summoned her, the young witch seemed to have magically apparated from thin air.

"Right here. Somebody had to pull that dagger out of him."

She jerks a thumb in Elijah's direction with a quick smile.

"How have you been holding up? Are you alright?" Bonnie fusses.

"Honestly? Pretty sure I was going to die today."

"I can't believe you talked me into this," Bonnie sighs.

"You were the one that called out to me, little witch," Elijah replies. "That was a fine strong spell you cast in order to speak to me from beyond the grave. You've grown stronger than I'd even imagine."

"Flattery isn't going to get you no where so how about we save the charming act? If you betray us a second time I will not hesitate to take you out. And like you said, I've grown stronger."

"I believe it," Elijah replies solemnly.

"Alright kiddies! The point is," Caroline interjects with false perkiness, the tension between the Original and the Witch was starting to make her feel uncomfortable. "Things are back on track. And now we get to kill three birds with one stone. Save Stefan, find Elijah's family and kill Klaus."

"Easy for you to say. You weren't the one left behind in Mystic Falls lying to Elena."

"You know how terrible of a liar I am!"

"You fooled Stefan and Klaus didn't you?"

"That was life-or-death."

"Try being in the same room with Damon Salvatore more often," Bonnie quips. "Alright. Do you have his blood?"

Bonnie extends her hand out, palms up expectantly. Caroline smiles and pulls out a bloody piece of cloth and places it in her hand.

"I hope it's enough. His head is like granite. I think I might have injured myself more than I hurt him."

The comment manages to elicit a small smile from Elijah and a full-on grin from Bonnie.

"It's perfect."

Bonnie walks over to the backdoor of the warehouse and throws it open, revealing a witch's circle complete with candles lit on each corner of the pentagon and star inscribed on the floor with chalk.

She walks towards the center of it and then looks over her shoulder to smile at Caroline and Elijah.

"Are we ready to kill a Hybrid?"

Something about the way the candlelight lights up Bonnie's eyes sends a shiver down her spine. Elijah, uncharacteristically, lays a hand on her shoulder in a reassuring manner.

"You've done marvelously, Caroline. Your part is done now. Don't worry, I promise to be the one to rip Klaus's heart out of his chest myself."

If only she knew then how wrong he'd be.


	3. Chapter 3

The entire hunt is spent in high tension. Klaus is crueler and even more brutal than he normally is and Stefan tries to restrain himself from flinching. It's strange to see how one little barbie vampire could get under the skin of the ancient, all powerful hybrid. Then again, most baby vampires are not usually as insolent as to smack him in the face and make demands.

He's in the middle of draining a blonde, pretending it was the aforementioned vampire, when he feels it. The sensation of something about to go terribly wrong invading his senses. He carelessly tosses his victim to the ground and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

"We have to get back. Now!"

Klaus doesn't wait for Stefan to follow before taking off in the direction of the warehouse.

Stefan looks up at him with a puzzled frown. It's uncharacteristic of Klaus to stop a hunt midway and abandon his usual posse of bodyguards. The frantic look in his eyes has Stefan worried. An invincible hybrid immortal doesn't usually get easily spooked.

A nauseous feeling rises in his stomach as they make their way back. In his head he repeatedly prays to whatever higher being out there that it doesn't have anything to do with Caroline, but he's pretty sure that the prayers are a waste of time.

Only the devil listen the prayers of the damned.

xxx

"The moon is almost at its apex," Bonnie announces as she watches the dark sky. "Any minute now..."

Caroline follows her line of sight to the bright round orb in the sky and suppresses another shiver. Everything is going according to plan.

Then why does she feel like something terrible is about to happen?

Bonnie closes her eyes and mutters a few final words over the bowl of witchy concoction set on the altar of candles.

"Elijah?" the witch calls.

"I know what to do," he answers calmly as he palms the dagger in his hand.

"This spell will link you to Klaus. You do understand what that means?"

"No need for your patronization, Miss Bennett. I am well aware what the consequences of the spell are. I'm the one that told you about it."

"Just making sure you're not backing out."

"I am not," he answers gravely.

Bonnie narrows her eyes at him, but seemed to be satisfied with his answer. She returns her focus on the moon shining above them, watching as it makes its journey across the starlit sky.

Caroline's not sure if it was just her nerves, but the moment the moon reached it's highest peak seemed as if the entire world was cast into utter silence. Like the clock hitting midnight before doomsday.

Suddenly the door bursts open and sure enough there he is. The pure embodiment of fury and wrath in the form of a handsome sandy haired devil.

Stefan is right behind him, his expression difficult to read and Caroline tries to get to him, but Elijah holds out an arm to stop her even as his eyes are trained on his younger brother.

"Stefan is not a priority right now," Elijah whispers to her.

The two siblings exchange heavy, silent, harrowing glares. She could practically cut the tension in the air with a knife. When their stare breaks, Klaus's eyes falls on her and she feels instantly paralyzed. The saying 'if looks could kill' would have been an understatement. She tries to swallow the lump in her throat, but finds that her mouth is dry.

Luckily for her, Bonnie doesn't bother with pleasantries before she begins chanting her spell, luring away Klaus's ire.

He makes a run for the pentagon star, his murderous sights set on the witch at the center, only to get knocked down by the rising flames and an invisible barrier. Bonnie uses that moment to drop the cloth with Klaus's blood into the bowl of fire.

"NO!"

Klaus makes another attempt towards the burning altar only to have the flames once again bar him from entry.

Elijah leaves Caroline's side and walks calmly past the flames and into the circle. On the other side of the ring of fire he gives Klaus a taunting smile.

"All this fire... feels a little like déjà vu does it not, brother?"

"Elijah," Klaus snarls.

"Difference is... I won't be swayed by your false promises this time."

"You cannot kill me!" he screams.

Elijah laughs. "Maybe not right now..." He glances over at Bonnie who had just finished chanting her spell and offers him a nod. "But soon."

Elijah turns his back on his brother and walks towards the center of the spell circle, dagger in hand. The final part of the spell required a bonding of the blood of both participants in order to bind them together.

With Elijah gone, Caroline makes her way towards Stefan and reaches for his hand.

"Stefan, come on! This is our chance!"

She smiles up at him, but the smile instantly dies when she sees the expression on his face.

Dark veins surrounding blood red eyes, his mouth opens in a wild grimace. She was not looking at her friend, her mentor. She was staring into the face of a Ripper.

He wrenches his hand from hers and before she knew what was happening Stefan had crossed the threshold of the spell circle that had kept Klaus at bay and plunged his hand through Elijah's back.

The shock of the attack by who he had thought was an ally was enough to loosen Elijah's grip on the dagger. Stefan doesn't waste any time snatching it from the air and ramming it through the older vampire's chest.

"Stefan, no!" She screams, horrified by the sight before her.

She can practically feel Klaus's mirth as the dagger slices through Elijah's flesh. True enough when she turns to look at him the hybrid is grinning from ear to ear.

Elijah falls to the ground and Bonnie shoots her a terrified glance. She manages to send a gust of power to hurtle Stefan out of the circle, but she can only keep him at bay for so long and she can't stop the spell now. The moon stays at its apex for only so long. They were about to lose the last chance they had to get Klaus.

Her thoughts are jumbled together in a whirlwind of emotions, but one singular thought reigns supreme.

I can't let it end like this.

Before she can doubt herself Caroline runs through the flames to Bonnie's side. Bringing her wrist to her mouth, she bites down hard until blood flows freely down her arm.

Bonnie's eyes widen in shock, but before the young witch can utter a protest Caroline thrusts her bleeding hand over the altar, her blood replacing Elijah's.

The moment her blood touches the altar the entire circle bursts into an inferno. She's suddenly struck by a feeling akin to being set on fire and doused with ice all at the same time. She falls hard to her knees from the pain.

Vaguely in the distance she can hear Klaus's anguished cries echoing hers before everything fades into the blinding whiteness.

In her last moments of consciousness, as she staring up at the moon, she thinks of a line she's heard from somewhere cannot recall.

Hell is not a red inferno. It's white. It's snow-white.*

xxx

He wakes up with a heavy feeling in his chest, the roar of blood thunderous in his ears. His lips are parched and his hand trembles as he pushes himself into sitting position. He could count the number of times he has ever felt physically sick and vulnerable on one hand. This feeling surpasses all of them.

To add on to how completely wrecked he's feeling, he's also overcome with the most intense hunger. He's not sure how long he's been unconscious, but at this moment he feels positively mummified from the lack of blood in his system.

As if somebody read his thoughts a blood bag is tossed to him. He doesn't waste time ripping it apart and devouring the contents. He licks his fingers clean, not wasting a single drop. The hunger is still there, but at least the pain has subsided.

"You look like hell."

He looks up and sees Elijah, freshly de-daggered, towering above him. He growls, discarding the empty blood bag aside and makes a move towards his treacherous brother, but is stopped once again by an invisible barrier. He glances down and notices that he's standing in the middle of another spelled circle. At this point he's pretty damn sick of these blasted things.

He doesn't bother trying and testing it's potency to cage him, he'll save his strength for a better opportunity. From behind Elijah he can make out the figures of the Bennett witch and the infant vampire that is the cause of all his misery.

"What did you do to me?" He snarls.

His question directed towards his brother, but his eyes were trained solely on Caroline's.

To her benefit, she does not flinch. She merely returns his steely gaze with one of her own. If anything she looks downright bold. Her cheeks were flushed a rosy color that he might consider pretty if only he didn't want to kill her.

He had miscalculated. Critically so. He had discredited what damage a infant vampire like her could do to an Original, to a hybrid, like him. It may have been the witch who casted the spell and it may have very well been his brother who came up to the plan, but it was her, the insubordinate, scheming little vampire, that was the one that weaseled her way into his life and made a mess of it all.

What with her schoolgirl tendencies and overzealous pep, she was nothing to him. She was a cheerleader for goodness sake! So he had let his guard down. Thought she'd be an amusing new plaything at most. Something to taunt Stefan with. She was pretty, he'd give her that. But nothing more, just a pretty little pet that he'd eventually break. He never expected her to bite back.

Elijah steps to the side, momentarily obscuring his view of the duplicitous little blonde. It's a rather protective gesture and Klaus snorts derisively as he crosses his arms across his chest and shoots his older brother a glower.

"The spell is simple really. If the baby vampire dies... you die."

The smug smile on Elijah's face makes his blood boil even hotter.

"You two are bound to one another."

"Impossible," he growls through gritted teeth.

"We thought you'd say that," the witch interjects. "Caroline? A demonstration please."

The two girls nod to one another and Caroline pulls out a wicked looking silver knife. Stepping forward so he can have a good view of her, she proceeds to cut through the palm of her hand.

He hisses in pain as an invisible twin knife slices through his skin. As her own skin split and tore so did his.

"So the moment you even think about doing anything to hurt my friends I will kill myself and I'm taking you down with me."

He doesn't doubt her sincerity from the fury burning in her eyes.

With a falsely sweet smile she says cheerily, "Consider me your personal horcrux!"

"You're a very brave and foolish little vampire," he intones, venom coating his words. He turns to his brother and gives him a withering glare. "I assume this was your brilliant idea?"

Elijah just smirks and shrugs. "You think I'd just trust you to not shove a dagger into my heart the next chance you get? You said you were going to take me to see our family, Niklaus. And I will see them. Under my conditions, not yours. Consider this evening the playing field."

Klaus snorts derisively in response.

"The witch I understand. She's been angling to kill me ever since I first stepped foot into town..." He turns on Caroline then, his gaze intimidating and intense. "But how did they manage to convince you into such a calamitous plan? You do realize the chances of you surviving this are not very likely. That is a promise I won't break."

"Like the man said," Caroline rolls her eyes at him. She speaks in a voice that is much bolder than she actually feels. "I die, you die. So that threat of yours is really not that effective now is it? And you underestimate how much I hate you." She flashes him a fake smile.

"I seem to have underestimated much more than that," he drones. "If you have me so properly chained so to speak... then what's with the witch's circle?"

"One can never be too careful," Bonnie answers. "Besides... we want to make a deal with you."

"A deal?" Klaus echoes with disdain.

"Well, it's not really a deal since you don't really have a choice in the matter," Caroline quips.

Klaus raises an eyebrow and sighs, uncrossing his arms.

"What do you want?"

"First of all... tell us where Stefan is."

Klaus looks at her with a bored expression. "I don't know what you are talking about."

"What did you do to him?" Caroline repeats. "After he attacked Elijah he just...took off!"

"Is it my fault you can't keep a leash on your man?"

"He's not my man!" Caroline protests, giving Bonnie a sidelong look. "He's my friend."

"Look, I don't really care either way about your teenage dramas. I am not Stefan's keeper. I don't know where he is. Even if I did, why would I tell you?"

"Because I assume you do want the spell lifted eventually," Elijah cuts in. "The only person that can do it would be this witch here," Elijah gestures to Bonnie. "And Caroline. And I doubt they'll do it for nothing in return."

Klaus narrows his eyes, a low growl emanating from the back of his throat.

"And let me guess... you still want to see our precious family?"

"You guess correctly, little brother."

Klaus is silent. She can almost hear the gears turning in his head.

"And you can't be plotting to kill us after this is all over," Caroline points out exasperatedly, hands on her hips. "That's a clause in the deal."

A strange expression crosses Klaus's face for a moment before he laughs. It's dark and rattles her to the very bone. She's been able to maintain a composure of calm, but she's starting to wonder if it was all just shock.

Contrary to popular belief Caroline was a horrible liar and she hates doing it. She's the kind to wear her heart on her sleeve. She's honest, maybe even to a fault as subtlety has never been her strong suit. So if it's the shock that is keeping calm enough to deliver all of her lines flawlessly, then she prays to god it doesn't wear off. She needs all the bravado she can get to make it through this.

"So I meet your demands... or what?" he taunts.

"Or you can kiss freedom good-bye," she drawls.

He gives her a murderous look and she answers it with one of her own. But through the mask of defiance she prays that Bonnie's spell circle holds.

"So it's either I help you or I die in this rotting circle. Is that basically it then?"

"Basically, yeah," both Caroline and Bonnie say in unison, exchanging nods to one another.

"Fine," he bites out the word as if it burns his tongue. "I'll help you find Stefan and bring you to see our family. Then you release me from this stupid little bond."

The girls leave Elijah and Klaus to hash out their family dramas and for Elijah to fill his brother out on the details of their faux alliance. She's glad to be putting a little distance between herself and the hybrid. She needs time to reorganize her thoughts and she still feeling a little funny in the aftermath of the spell.

"Are you sure you're okay with this, Caroline?" Bonnie whispers worriedly.

"I'm fine. Better than fine. I feel great!" she reassures her friend. "Unless growing a second head or something is one of the spell's side effects. It's not is it?"

Bonnie laughs. "No. You shall stay singularly headed unfortunately."

"Thank god because it will be hell looking for a homecoming dress that can accommodate unorthodox numbers of appendages."

Bonnie smiles at her silently. After a moment the young witch nods.

"I think you'll do okay."

"Of course I will!" She answers brightly. "Everything is smooth-sailing from here."

Just then she turns, her eyes lock with the caged hybrid's and she swears she's looking into the eyes of the Satan himself. On the bright side, she's starting to get used to the whole lying thing.

xxx

It's been a long day, hell it's been a long month. One filled with planning and plotting and lots and lots of lying through her teeth. Needless to say she's both mentally and physically exhausted by current events.

The only thing Caroline wanted to do was put her head to the pillow and sleep like the dead, no pun intended. Alas the peaceful pitch black of a restful sleep proves forever elusive.

The moment she closes her eyes, the dream haunts her.

She's in a darkened room, with only candles to act as a light source. The flames cast dancing shadows upon the walls. Nothing too out of the ordinary until she feels it. Hands tracing delectable patterns against her skin.

She can hardly control her breathing the way their lingering touches make her feel. Whoever this mysterious stranger is, he knows what he is doing.

She moans in pleasure as he leaves a trail of open mouthed kisses down the side of her ribs.

"Caroline..."

His voice is so incredibly familiar, but she can't seem to get a clear enough head to place it.

She tries to recall if Matt or Tyler ever sounded like that, but quickly rules them out. Her thoughts wander to a certain older Salvatore, but she also quickly dismisses the thought.

Damon had always been good, what with his decades of experience, but whoever this is, he knew exactly where to touch, when to kiss, as if he was reading her very thoughts and making her utterly pliable in his hands.

She felt drunk off his touches. Maybe it was... she shakes her head at the idea. Those were treacherous thoughts. Ones that she'd pushed away the moment Elena claimed him as hers. There was a girl code after all.

Continuous thoughts fail her and she abandons her efforts to guess who the mysterious stranger is. She's too distracted by the way his lips move against hers, how he expertly parts them with his tongue. She's lost in a hazy cloud of pleasure and try all she might to try to regain full access to her thoughts, her brain is numbed by the feeling of his body moving against hers.

Those touches. She craves it whenever he moves away and she feels the cold air replace his scorching needs more. More skin against skin. More friction. More him.

When he pulls back from their kiss the flicker of the candle finally casts a column of light on his otherwise shadowy face. She opens her eyes to meet sea green ones staring down at her and finally realization dawns on her.

She jerks awakes, sweat beads on her skin, her heart beating a million miles a minute.

"Did you have a good dream, Caroline?"

She flinches at the sound of his voice and peers through the darkness of her room to find him sitting comfortably in a chair across from her. Smug grin gracing his devilishly handsome face.

"Klaus..."

He smiles a wolfish grin at her and her guard is instantly up.

"What? How? H-How did you get in here? In my house?" she screams.

"Funny thing about this spell... did you know that since we are bound, all the invitations that have been extended to you has now been extended to me?" He smiles smugly at her.

Her eyes widen in shock at his revelation. And then it hits her, the implication of it all. Suddenly she's filled with fear.

"What did you do to my mother? If you touch her I swear to god-" her words come out fast and they stumble over one another.

"Hush, sweetheart. No need for threats. We're partners now," he soothes. "Your mother is merely going on an extended sabbatical and she thought you'd like some company. She was very grateful when I volunteered my supervision."

Caroline scoffs at that.

"Now, that's doesn't sound like a thank you. I thought you'd be more grateful. I'm sending your mother out of harm's way."

"Who the hell asked you?" She retorts. "I can take care of the people I love."

"Yes, well, that's kind of the problem, sweetheart. As much as it annoys me... we are linked and I can't very well protect you if you're going to running head first into trouble trying to save everybody. You're a rather careless and reckless lot. Getting your mother out of the way means one less variable to worry about."

"So what? You're here to babysit me? I thought Elijah was taking care of you. At the Salvatore's," she emphasizes the last part.

Damon had not been too happy when he found out what she and Bonnie had been up to behind his back, but he had agreed with their logic. Only the barest minimal people could know the details otherwise they risk it somehow getting messed up and getting to Stefan. Damon was exactly thrilled for the new house guests, but he also agreed that neither Caroline or Bonnie should be putting up any of the Originals. They had curfews and family members who would raise eyebrows at the prospect of new roommates. Apparently that wasn't enough to stop Klaus.

"The Salvatore boarding house is getting a little crowded," he drawls with distaste. "And I like to keep an eye on what is mine."

"I am not yours," she hisses.

"But you are, my sweet Caroline. We are bounded. Or did you think so very lightly of that spell and the consequences of thrusting your bloody hand into altar?"

"I-I!" Caroline finds herself tongue-tied and unable to come up with a good response. She had been impulsive that night and most of all desperate. She didn't have time to fully comprehend the consequences.

"Of course you could easily be rid of me. Just convince your little witch friend to lift the spell," he shrugs nonchalantly.

"Yeah, don't hold your breath," she mutters. "You're going to help us find Stefan and bring him back home."

"Don't you think you're getting awfully riled up for someone else's boyfriend? Who's to say he even wants to come back?"

She narrows her eyes at him and crosses her arms at her chest, but when she notices how his gaze has dipped she quickly uncrosses them and pulls the covers over herself.

"He's my friend. I don't give up on my friends."

He groans and rolls his eyes. "You're starting to sound like a broken record."

She closes her eyes for a moment and counts to ten backwards to keep from wanting to throttle him seeing as throttling him would be only be inflicting self harm.

When she opens her eyes she sees him watching her with an amused expression on his face.

"You're actually much more disciplined than I thought. I applaud your ability to restrain from keeping your hands off of me."

Her temper flares back again at his suggestive comment.

"Oh, but it's back! How easy it is to get under your skin, little vampire."

He's marveling at how well he can feel her emotions. Every subtle heart skip, every increase in pulse. Another byproduct of the spell that bound them together. At first it had been gradual, but he's starting to become more and more in tune with the emotions of the baby vampire. It's an interesting development and one he plans on exploiting.

"Get out of my house." Her voice is snarl, primitive and carnal.

"You didn't seem to object as much in the dream," he smirks. "If it's about the sleeping arrangement, we could always share a room if you'd prefer it."

She tosses a lamp at his head, to which he dodges.

"Get out!" She screams.

"I'll be in the room across the hall if you need me." He laughs, smiling that handsome grin of his before turning on his heels.

He's going to have fun torturing his new little housemate.

"Pleasant dreams, sweet Caroline," he calls over his shoulder with a careless wave.

At this rate she was going to need to start hording lamps to chuck at bedroom intruders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * This is an adapted line from the BBC miniseries NORTH & SOUTH. The original line goes, " I believe I have seen hell and it's white, it's snow-white." It was such a lovely line and gave me chills when I first watched it. So I wanted to incorporate that experience into Caroline's desperate last thoughts.
> 
> A/N: FINALLY! I've been anxiously trying to get the spell part of the story done so we can get to the good stuff. Being bonded = lots of fun times for our baby vampire and hybrid duo. Lots of hijinks and miscommunication and emotional manipulation to be had as spells gone wrong is wont to do. So stay tuned!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Special shout out to my wonderful betas skerdypants and call-me-katherine. Without them this chapter would not have been possible.

He splashes water on his face, trying to regain a clear head, only catching a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror. Raising a fist in the air he brings it down forcefully into the reflection, shattering the mirror into a million little pieces. He ignores the short burst of pain as the sharp edges cut his hand. He'll heal quickly enough. He's been pumped with human blood for the past several months. They always made him stronger, heal faster.

They also make him edgier, more volatile and apparently more suspect to dangerous thoughts. Ripper thoughts.

"Why so angry? You did well."

Stefan whirls around at the voice. He had been too preoccupied with self loathing to notice that somebody else had entered the room.

He growls when he realizes who it is.

"I failed," he says tersely. "It's over. I messed up."

Katherine Pierce rolls her eyes and tosses her perfectly curled mahogany hair over her shoulder. She merely looks amused albeit maybe a little exasperated by his dramatics. She tsks her tongue at him and smiles.

"On the contrary. You've gained Klaus's trust now."

"The point was to bind myself to him, not gain his trust. And Caroline-"

"An unforeseeable obstacle, but nothing we can't overcome. Besides, the point was that we couldn't let Elijah be bound to Klaus. Of course it's not ideal that it was Caroline that he was bounded to instead... but I still see a silver lining. Klaus thinks you were trying to save him. We can use that to our advantage."

Stefan should've known that when Katherine approached him, whispering conspiratorially about schemes and spells and general backstabbing, that it was not a good idea. The female vampire had somehow stumbled upon Bonnie and Caroline's little plan with Elijah, and she quickly got to work to set it up to her advantage and roping him into it.

"I should've never listened to you. I shouldn't have interfered-"

"You knew that we couldn't trust Elijah," Katherine interrupts. "Klaus is his brother. No matter what, the bond between brothers is unbreakable. You should know that best. Elijah would never be able to bring himself to kill Klaus. No matter what he said. The girls were fools to believe otherwise."

"No, I'm the fool to listen to you," he retorts angrily. "It was supposed to be me, not Caroline!"

He shakes his head. Everything had spiraled out of his control. For one thing, he didn't think Caroline would act so soon. He had thought he had more time, maybe to warn her, maybe to talk her out of it. Come up with a plan that was better than Katherine's. And secondly, he had never thought in a million years that Caroline would have done what she did. That she would be so insane as to take it upon herself to replace Elijah in the ritual. Caroline was brave, he knew that, but he didn't think her a martyr. That sort of thing was reserved for people like himself.

"This has been a colossal mistake."

Katherine crosses her arms across her chest and narrows her eyes at him.

"Get over it, Stefan," she drawls. "We still have work to do. So you can either just sit around and twiddle your thumbs in anguish about what already happened... or you can help me see this through."

"I'm not killing Klaus. Not while he's still bound to Caroline. You're going to help me break that spell. I'm not letting anything happen to her."

Katherine studies him silently.

"Interesting... I thought it was always Elena, Elena, Elena."

"I love Elena. So yes. What does that have to do with anything?"

"Well I just thought you were doing this for her," Katherine shrugs.

"I am doing this for her. She'll never be able to live a normal life with Klaus around."

Katherine yawns and fixes a bored look in his direction. Just more of her games, he realizes.

"What are you trying to get at, Katherine?"

She lets out a snort. "Nothing. I just think you might want to work on being more convincing for Klaus."

She turns on her heels and starts sauntering to the door.

"Come out when you're done with the self pity and loathing. We have a schedule to keep. I'll wait in the car."

Katherine lets the door close behind her, leaving Stefan once again alone in the bathroom. The flickering light above catches the shards of mirror all over the floor, setting them all aglitter like a million little stars.

Stefan looks down at his hand, and sure enough, it's completely healed. Studying the unmarked skin, he recalls another pair of hands. Caroline's. Her fingers had been laced through his as she urged him to run, to come with her. She had been trying to save him. Who knew he would end up the villain rather than the hero in the story?

He clenches his hand into a fist once again, wipes the excess blood on a towel hastily, and tosses it to the floor before following Katherine's footsteps.

xxx

Caroline goes to school the next day with panda-like rings under her eyes. Klaus had left her dreams alone after she hurled that lamp towards his head, but she still hadn't been able to sleep a wink. Not with the knowledge that they were separated by only the mere thin width of a wall. Besides, she was still fuming. The result was a lot of tossing and turning in her bed. The only good thing she saw out of it was that hopefully her fitful sleep also meant he didn't get any sleep either. Seeing how they're bounded and all.

Of course when she left earlier that morning the bastard was slumbering away as far as she could tell.

She goes through the motions of the day in a daze. You'd think such invulnerable creatures as vampires would not suffer from sleep deprivation, but she found herself snoozing through her history class.

Alaric taps on her desk with his textbook, startling her awake. She jerks upwards, muttering something about the prohibition era. It seems that Klaus had a thing for the Roaring Twenties. He dreams in black and white too. It was a strange sensation and she wonders hazily if he realizes she could access his dreams as he could hers.

"Caroline."

Alaric calls her name again and she blinks several times and tries to subtly wipe the drool from her mouth as she slowly came to recognize where she was.

"Thank you for that wonderful demonstration of knowledge on Al Capone, Caroline... but we've moved on from the 1920s to the Cuban Missile Crisis," Alaric drawls.

The class erupts in laughter and she slouches in her seat.

Alaric smiles and rubs her head good naturedly before moving on. She shoots him a hard glare behind his back. She found herself much more upset about his ruining her perfectly curled hair than the minor embarrassment of falling asleep in class. She might not look like it, but Caroline Forbes was an honor student.

It was all part of her perfect little plan. Honor student, head cheerleader, president of the community service club, and chair for the founder's day event committee. All ingredients needed for the perfect future as a wealthy politician's wife. That had been her plan. Until she got murdered and turned into a vampire.

How quickly her life had turned upside down. And now it was positively topsy turvy. She's not even sure if she knows how to stand upright anymore. Everything was such a mess.

When the class finally ended, Alaric asks her to stay behind.

"Are you alright, Caroline?"

She frowns at him. "I'm perfectly fine."

He gives her a look which clearly shows he doesn't believe her. "You fell asleep in class."

"I'm sorry. The Cuban Missile Crisis just isn't as riveting as you'd like to think. Not all of us are history buffs, Ric." She adds unnecessary emphasis on Damon's little nickname for him which gains her a disapproving look.

"Caroline, you were moaning," Alaric points out with a raised eyebrow.

Caroline immediately flushes a bright tomato red as she recalls the dreams she's been having courtesy of one very irritating hybrid Original. Just then Tyler knocks on the door, saving her from a stuttered mess of a response.

"Hey. Did you forget that we were supposed to meet after class?"

Alaric sighs and drops the topic. "Sorry, I held her up."

Tyler frowns and looks back and forth between the history teacher and his vampire pupil. "Is something the matter?"

"No!" She says a little too quickly. "I'm just... I've been a little tired lately because I haven't been able to get much sleep."

Neither Alaric nor Tyler has yet been filled in about the whole Klaus business, and it's not exactly something she wants to get into without Bonnie or Damon as back up.

"I didn't realize vampires even needed sleep," Tyler inserts.

"Yeah, well you learn something new every day," she replies snappishly.

"Just not about the Cuban Missile Crisis," Alaric jokes.

She sends him a glare in return.

"Somebody is testy today."

Immediately she feels guilty for projecting her bad mood onto her friends and brings her hand to her face with a sigh.

"I'm sorry. I'm just... cranky. I think maybe I should just go home. Can I take a rain check on the Grill?"

Tyler puts his arm around her shoulders and gives her a soft smile.

"Yeah, alright, come on, I'll give you a ride."

The two males exchange nods before Tyler leads her out to the hallway and in the direction of the parking lot.

The car ride is uneventful, and Tyler walks her to her door in an uncharacteristically gentlemanly manner. Before she can finish unlocking the door, he touches her hand and opens his mouth as if to say something, but when she turns and looks at him he merely smiles and lets go.

"I hope you feel better soon, Caroline."

Caroline smiles back and thanks him before going inside. She watches him pause on her porch steps for a moment before turning back to his car and driving away.

"How sweet, you've got yourself a little werewolf suitor."

She whips around and sees Klaus standing there with that ever present smirk on his face. His voice was dripping with condescension.

He catches her darkening expression and quickly adds, "Oh don't worry. Until I figure out a way to turn werewolves into proper hybrids, your little wolf will be safe for now. Besides, I think I'm fonder of the blonde at the Grill anyways. He smells tasty. You should pick him and invite him over sometime for dinner. Or as dinner I suppose."

It was naive of her to think that he'd somehow come to the conclusion that the Salvatore Boarding House was a better housing option while she was away.

"If I wanted your opinion, I would've asked for it. And stay away from Matt and Tyler."

She pushes past him, marching towards the kitchen. Crankiness was making her hungry. Of course, when she opens the fridge she finds it utterly empty, including the thermos of blood she hid in the back.

"Yeah, that little bit of blood was barely enough for a snack, love."

She slams the refrigerator door shut and whirls on him.

"Can you be any more annoying?"

She's quite ready to pull her hair out from her head in frustration.

He raises his eyebrow her in amusement. "Is that a challenge, little vampire? I must say that I do love a good challenge." His eyes twinkle with mischief and mockery.

Suddenly, he's there before her, invading her personal space. He places one hand against the refrigerator next to her head and leans in close. She had to look up to meet his eyes.  
That's when she realized how tall he was.

"Consider yourself very lucky, sweetheart. I am restraining myself. We are linked so you know I am not lying when I tell you just how much I would like to rip that pretty little head of yours off that little neck," he says smoothly.

Caroline's in no mood for threats and so instead of cowering like he wanted her to do, she straightens her back and stares defiantly into his eyes.

"Well guess what? You can't. So you can simmer in that little bubble of hate and resentment all you want, because nothing is going to change. Not until we find Stefan. So you know what? Go ahead. Give me your best shot. I can take it. I have more willpower than you'd give me credit for."

She can feel it, his anger compounding with hers. Feels the growl in the back of his throat in her own.

He is chained to an infant vampire cheerleader and she's stuck to an insufferable psychopath. Neither finds the situation ideal. For the longest moment, they're just standing there glaring at one another, forever at a standstill and neither budging. The tension is so thick in the room that one could probably cut through it with a rusty dull spoon.

"Is everything okay in here?"

They both turn quickly to face the owner of the voice. Bonnie stands in the entrance way of the kitchen, looking back and forth between Caroline and Klaus. Neither of them had noticed when she had gotten there. They'd both been too preoccupied with trying to vaporize one another with their glares.

"Everything's just hunky dory!" Caroline says with sarcasm, narrowing her eyes at Klaus one last time. Shoving past him, she reaches out to grab Bonnie's arm to drag her friend towards the nearest exit. "Let's get out of here."

Bonnie lets her lead the way. She could recognize when Caroline was stewing in silent rampage and didn't press the blonde for further information. Only once they were in Bonnie's car and putting good distance between themselves and Klaus, the object of Caroline's ire, does the blonde vampire finally speak.

"Ugh! He's such an infuriating bastard!"

She buries her head in her hands for a moment and tries counting backwards from ten. It doesn't work. No matter how many times she tries. She's not even sure if it is her own anger or his that she's still feeling. It was frightening how tangled their emotions could be. Bonnie shoots a worried look over at her.

"What was he even doing there? I thought he was supposed to be staying with Damon and Elijah."

"So did I!" She shouts, lifting her face from her hands. "The asshole showed up last night saying he needed to 'protect me' or whatever," she says mockingly with air quotes. "Well if he thinks I'm going to play roomies with some psychotic hybrid killer then he has another thing coming!"

She huffily crosses her arms across her chest and leans back against the car seat.

"Who does he think he is anyways? We have the advantage here! We make the demands, not the other way around!"

Bonnie continues to nod along with her ranting until they reach the Grill. They slide into their usual booth, and she starts occupying herself with shredding her paper napkin and making little mountains of the pieces.

"Is it okay to just... leave him back there though?" Bonnie inquires.

"He's not going to hurt anybody. Well... not kill anybody anyways. I'd know if he was going to do that."

Bonnie wrinkles her brow at her. "How…?"

"I can feel what he feels. That includes the euphoria vampires feel when we feed. I'd know if he was draining too much. Right now he's probably just stewing and breaking things. Actually I'm pretty sure that's what he's doing."

If she closes her eyes she can practically feel his/her fist pummeling into walls and tearing apart various forms of furniture. He better clean up after himself and replace all the things he's breaking, she thinks dispassionately.

"Anyways, I'm so done talking about Klaus," she sighs.

After a moment, she decides to finally ask that question she's been dying to ask.

"Have... have you talked to Elena?"

She's been avoiding the brunette all day, ducking into corners whenever she passed by in the halls.

Bonnie's expression immediately falls. "Yeah..."

"How'd she take it? I know I was supposed to be there and talk to her with you, but-"

"No, no. It was fine. Elijah was there... and I get it. This must be the hardest on you. I mean you're the one chained to the psycho."

Caroline smiles a little at that. "But still. I should've been there..." She mentally curses her own cowardice. "So what did Elena say?"

"She's angry. That's for sure. She feels betrayed and I guess she has the right to be. I mean we did lie to her and in the end Stefan is still gone. She thinks we're crazy and..." Bonnie sighs. "She needs some time. Just don't be too shocked if she ignores you at school."

"Ugh!" She groans, laying her head on the table. "This is just great. My mom is god knows where, Elena hates me, Stefan has gone all ripper, and I'm bounded to Klaus the great psychopathic hybrid freak bent on world domination. This is just wonderful."

For a brief moment she wallows in self-pity of the mess she found herself in. Just as quickly she lifts her head up and looks at Bonnie with renewed fervor.

"I think we need a drink, yes?"

Bonnie laughs and nods. Caroline grins and saunters over to the bar to persuade the bartender in giving them some de-virginized Shirley Temples.

xxx

About a half dozen drinks in she's finally starting to feel the buzz; one of the few drawbacks, or not, of being a vampire. She didn't get drunk as easily as she used to.

The ease of which her mental faculties have been dulled by the alcohol makes her realize that she hasn't eaten anything in several hours. The lack of blood in her system made her body much slower to heal; particularly the liver organ.

She excuses herself, saying she needed to go to the girl's room, and sneaks off to the back. Even if she and Bonnie were friends again, she doubted the witch would like to be aware about all the times she had to feed. Be reminded that the old Caroline Forbes is dead. That this Caroline now was a vampire, a non-human.

But mostly she hid away because she didn't like the way her face changed, how feral looking she became when she drank blood. When she was younger she recalls an old playground myth that said if you made a funny face for too long, you would get stuck with it forever.

She has often wondered if it works the same for vampire faces.

She's run out of blood bags and she doubts Bonnie kept any in her car, so that only left one option. Bunnies. It's not her favorite method, but what's a girl vampire to do?

She's heading out towards the woods behind the Grill when she sees him, the new guy at the Grill. He had replaced Ben McKittrick as the bartender after Ben went all evil vamp, kidnapped Bonnie and Elena and then Stefan had to light him on fire. She doesn't know his name, but they've casually flirted a few times.

"Hey! Caroline right?"

He smiles charmingly at her, stubbing out his cigarette on the floor. He was cute in that boyish, flannel shirt wearing kind of way. But it wasn't his good looks that was distracting her.

He walks towards her and she can hear his pulse beating. It thunders in her ears, making her vision go red.

He says something to her, but she doesn't catch what it is. All she sees is the vein at his throat, pulsating. She's salivating just from the thought of the blood rushing through those veins. The hunger has never taken control of her this much before and she's feeling herself caving. The alcohol renders her will powerless to the instinctual craving for blood.

Maybe… maybe just a little taste wouldn't hurt, she thinks to herself. She never did like bunnies anyways.

He gives her a concerned look and repeats her name in a question, but she interrupts it with an apology as she sinks her teeth into his neck.

She's surprised by how good it was, how much she had wanted it. It's a wonder why she had repulsed the hunt so much before. The blood flowing from the open wound and into her mouth was intoxicating, more than any drink, more than any drug. She was getting lost in a haze of bloodlust.

"Now where was this enthusiasm when I wanted it?" Klaus drawls, stepping out of the shadows.

She starts at his voice and drops the boy from her arms unceremoniously to the floor.

"Oh my god."

She had been too absorbed in feeding that she didn't notice him approaching at all. Suddenly it dawned on her that she might have taken too much. She immediately falls to her knees and presses her ear to his chest. Only once a heartbeat has been confirmed does she release a breath she did not even know she was holding.

He scoffs at her efforts.

"I see you've been holding out on me. Don't you think it's a little hypocritical for you to criticize my eating habits when well..." he smirks as he gestures to the sprawled body of the young bartender on the floor.

She follows his gaze, and the sight of the unconscious boy strikes her once more with the feeling of guilt.

"I-This... This was a onetime thing. I-I don't know what got into me," she stammers. She leans back against the brick wall and looks up at him. "What are you even doing here?"

She's still feeling a little unsteady from the combination of blood and alcohol.

"I was getting hungry and then I felt you feeding."

Of course he'd get hungry. What with destroying her family's precious heirlooms and furnishings and what not. It must have been tiring work.

She wonders then if it was perhaps his hunger combined with her own that made her slip. She's starting to realize just how dangerous it was being bonded with him. That she was slowly losing her grip on the control she had fought so desperately to attain.

When she had felt the cravings creep in on her, when she had finally succumbed to it and sank her teeth into his neck and tastes his thick, delicious blood on her tongue, she couldn't stop herself. And because of that she nearly killed someone, again.

She scrubs at the blood on her face with the back of her hand, feeling a little disgusted with herself.

He groans and rolls his eyes. "Ugh. Here comes the remorse again. Why are you feeling guilty? You're doing nothing wrong," he sneers. "This is our nature."

She shakes her head. "I may be a vampire, but I'm still me. And I'm not a killer."

"Being a vampire is being you. You are the vampire and the vampire is you. They are one and the same. And it just so happens that killing is necessary for vampires. It's all part of the great Darwinian cycle."

"And that's a valid excuse to treat humans like simple food stock? Is that what you are saying? I should just be a crazy serial killer like you?"

"I'm not a serial killer."

"Oh my mistake, I thought the definition of a serial killer was a person who commits multiple murders. Say, what's your body count these days?"

"When humans butcher and slaughter animals for consumption does that count as murder? I am merely acting according to my nature, a simple tale of the scorpion and the frog. You can lie and deny it all you want, but we are hunters. Humans are prey. It is basic instinct."

"People aren't hamburgers."

"You are still so young and ignorant. You can try and suppress it now, but I can already sense the darkness in you. You will come to realize it on your own in time. You'll see. You'll come around."

"Don't hold your breath. I'd rather walk in the sun without my ring than 'come around' to your kind of twisted logic."

It's the second time she's used air quotes that day. It just goes further to show how much she had been drinking; or how being around him has regressed her into an immature, childish state.

She shakes her head at him and focuses her attention back on the human male on the ground. She crouches back down beside him and takes a bite out her wrist. Klaus hisses softly when he feels his own skin punctured by invisible fangs. She holds the blood up to the boy's mouth and lets him drink a few droplets. She checks to make sure that his bite wounds have been healed and wipes away the excess blood with her sleeve as he comes to.

"W-what happened?"

"You slipped on some ice," she answers readily. "And hit your head. But you're okay now. You're going to go back inside as if nothing has happened. It was just a bad fall and you'll ask to go home early."

The cute bartender looks back at her with that dreadful blank look the compelled always have.

"Yeah," he nods, agreeing. "Just hit my head a bit. It's still a little sore so I'll just go home early."

She smiles at him and helps him get up.

Klaus rolls his eyes when the boy walks past him and back into the building behind them.

"I'm surprised you didn't pat him on the head like a good little boy," he intones sarcastically.

She brushes off her pants and glares at him.

"Are you done?"

"I haven't even started."

She tries to push past him, but he catches her arm and pulls her back.

"I may be chained right now, but you would be foolish, little vampire, if you think you have the upper hand here. I could easily take you away from here. Hide you away in some little dark, dinky hole where you'll never see any of your friends or family again, freeing me to do whatever I wished. The only real reason I am not is because I still need to fix my little hybrid problem. And then there's the little matter of a... hunter that I'd like to get off my back. Both problems that my dearest brother has promised to help me with in return for my cooperation."

He releases her arm then and she suppressed a shudder. She hadn't thought of that. That Klaus could've just kidnapped her and lock her away. She'd be safe from any physical harm and yet still be rendered completely and utterly miserable; which would've worked perfectly to his benefit. The realization leaves her suddenly and painfully sober.

She had been naïve and fatally so. To think that she ever really had any leverage over him was completely laughable. The worst of it was he had known it all along. Let her believe she was in power, toyed with her. It was humiliating and she could feel her cheeks burning in a combination of shame and fury.

He leans in to whisper in her ear, "That's check, sweetheart. Better rethink your strategy."

He smiles a wolfish grin at her before walking away. She watches as his shadowy figure disappears in the darkness before going back into the Grill.

xxx

He's not there when she gets home. The house is eerily quiet and surprisingly intact. Somehow she finds herself oddly disappointed that he's not there. She always hated it when her mom worked late; hated the silence that echoed through the empty halls. It used to be a livelier place when she was younger. Back when her dad was still there and her mom didn't work 24/7. It is strange how in her very own home, she felt the most alone.

Some protector he is, she thinks sulkily.

She direly wished she was back at the Grill, but it was already past midnight and Bonnie pointed out that they still had school in the morning. It was only Monday after all; Tuesday now, actually. She sighed and got herself ready for bed. Wherever he is, at least he wouldn't be manipulating her dreams tonight.

She spoke too soon. She'll wake up in the morning with her sheets tangled about and sweat clinging to her skin. Klaus does nightmares just as well as he does fantasies.

xxx

Miles away from where Caroline lay, Stefan and Katherine find themselves into a crypt, hidden away in a little town in the middle of nowhere. There's no indicator at all as to whose body lies in eternal slumber in the darkness of the tomb, but they both march purposefully in.

Inside, the crypt is oddly clean. Its floors freshly swept, and a rather modern looking heavy wood casket lies at the center. Flowers adorning the ground meant somebody had been there recently.

The pair exchange nervous glances, but continue to move forth. They've barely reached the burial box when a voice stops them.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

They turn around to face a man dressed in a plain black dress shirt and pants. Horned rimmed glasses grace a rather friendly, but stern looking face. It's a familiar face, but Stefan can't quite put his finger on where.

"Let me guess... you're here because you want to kill Klaus?"

Katherine narrows her eyes at the stranger, her pouty lips pulled downwards in a glower.

"And who the hell are you?"

The man smiles and, despite the kind tone and the rather paternal crows-feet crinkling his eyes, Stefan feels his hair standing on end.

"I'm the man who can help you put a dagger through his heart."


	5. Chapter 5

She was infuriating. Never following the script he had written for her in his head. When he sought to intimidate her, she only grew braver. None of his usual tricks work, and he couldn't very well coerce her in any physical way. That would only be inflicting pain upon himself.

He almost wishes sometimes that it was Elijah he was bound to. At least they understood one another. He was his brother after all. Sometimes Caroline was such a stereotypical goody-two-shoes that he grew nauseous from the sweetness. He can't even properly enjoy a decent meal without feeling her reproach ruining the moment.

It was like somebody else was in his head at all times, more specifically a neurotic, overachieving, teen cheerleader with a penchant for Save the Whales campaigns and Help the Historical Society fundraisers, and he did not like it one bit.

He decided then, when he's had had enough of her amateurish abilities to put her emotions into control, to confront her. He went as far as to show up at her school. Instead of finding his favorite baby vampire, however, he had run into the doppelganger instead.

xxx

Caroline had spent the entirety of English texting Elena and trying to get the brunette to reply. Elena has been screening all of her calls and messages, and from what Bonnie has told her, she's been subjected to the same treatment.

When class finally ended, Elena just put her books in her bag and walked by without acknowledging Caroline's pleas. She only gets about two feet out the door when she suddenly stopped short at the sight in front of her.

"Hello, Elena. You look..." he gave her a once over, "Alive," Klaus said with a grin that belies the threatening gleam of his eyes.

"Klaus!" Elena gasped, her mouth opening in shock.

"You know... I've been having a problem with my hybrids. Mostly has to do with them dying," he said, scrunching up his face and shrugging. "Perhaps it's because you're still among the living... what are we going to do about that?"

Elena took a step back and glanced around at the hundreds of students and teachers and school faculty around. Surely Klaus wouldn't try something smack dab in the middle of the day with all these witnesses. It would be insane!

Then again, he was Klaus.

He opens his mouth to say something else to her, but she never got to hear what. In a blur, Caroline is suddenly in front of her, pushing her protectively behind her.

"What the hell are you doing here?" She screamed at him.

"I came to see you. I merely ran into Elena here…" he gestured to Elena with his hand, "and thought I should do the polite thing and say hello."

She growled and shoved at him. When he doesn't budge, she yanked on his arm forcefully. Perhaps out of amusement, he allowed her to pull him out of sight as Elena stood by, still rooted by shock.

"Chat to you later, sweetheart," he called over Caroline's shoulder. She tightened her grip on his arm, her fingernails digging into his flesh. She ignores the pain that duplicates on her own arm.

Finally, she managed to drag him to a secluded spot behind the school building where the druggies usually hung out. There was only a lone kid there, a boy she recognized as a member of Jeremy's old crew during his emo days. She snatches his joint from his lips despite his protests and quickly compelled him to go to class. As an afterthought, she told him to shape up and be nice to his mom before he ducked back into class before the bell rang.

Klaus rolled his eyes.

"I hope delinquent youths aren't a new pet project with you."

She ignored him and launched into her rant.

"What the hell? What were you doing talking to Elena? She's off limits, remember? If you touch-"

"I said I came to see you, didn't I?"

"And whatever you had to say couldn't wait until after school?"

"I was bored. And you're always a great source of entertainment."

She groans and rubs her face with her hands.

"Must you be so damn difficult all of the time?"

"Only because I find you adorable when you're angry, love."

He grinned at her and it only served to further her frustration.

"Shouldn't you be, oh, I don't know! Finding Stefan, perhaps, so we can lift this stupid spell?"

He sighed and his face changed from amusement to annoyance.

"I'm trying. But I can't exactly concentrate what with all your silly little emotions going everywhere. Which is why I'm here. You need to stop."

"My emotions are not silly!" She protests, her hands on her hips. In a more sheepish tone, she adds, "And there was a very emotional documentary on endangered animals in bio today..." she trailed off softly.

Klaus brings his fingers to his temples, attempting to rub away the headache that was forming. It doesn't work.

"Hey! You're not exactly great fun to be bonded to either. You're like super high maintenance, and would it kill you for once to leave some hot water for me in the morning? And not only that, you take forever! If I'm late one more time-"

"Well, we could always shower together and save time."

"In your dreams."

"Don't you mean in your dreams?"

"Are you done now? Have you had your fun yet?" she huffs, crossing her arms over her chest defensively. "Scratch that, your idea of fun is probably torturing cute animals."

"Who needs animals when I have you?"

She narrows her eyes at him. He drops the banter and takes on a more serious expression.

"Turn. It. Off," he says, enunciating each word sternly.

She lets out a snort, shakes her head slightly, and glares at him.

"It doesn't work like that. I can't help it!"

"Yeah, well thanks to that stupid spell, all of your silly little feelings are affecting me. The last thing I need is your urges to adopt kittens and save puppies interfering with building my army."

"You're not supposed to be building armies," she points out. "You're supposed to find Stefan. Talk to me when you finally get a clue."

She had scoffed and turned away from him, going back to organizing neighborhood cleanups or school dances or whatever the hell it is she was always planning. He finds her obsession with keeping up a facade of normalcy idiotic. As if sensing his thoughts, she had turned to shoot a glare at him over her shoulder before disappearing around the corner.

xxx

He growled at the memory of their early morning confrontation as he nursed his glass of scotch. He's been waiting for his witch to show up, but she was late and he was growing impatient and frustrated.

He's been trying to forcibly distance himself from her feelings, but they always somehow find a way to leak through. She doesn't filter anything and she feels everything. All the anger, the fear, the anxiety, and most of all, the small moments of happiness. He can feel it all. After so many years of suppressing his emotions to just the small spectrum of what was needed to intimidate and subdue, he finds it all overwhelming.

And all the feelings came with an additional side effect. The blonde was too intuitive to his behaviors. In no way was she telepathic, but for such delicate scheming, he had to make sure she wouldn't be able to guess what he was up to. Hence the dreams.

They distracted her, wore her out, and made her less in tune to what he was actually doing. And to be quite honest, he rather enjoyed them himself. He smirks as he recalls her purring in his ear. As infuriating as she was, she was a lovely creature, and he likes getting under her skin. And from their brief encounter at school, he's achieved that in spades.

"Back so soon?" a voice calls out, interrupting his memory of her scowl.

He looks up and smiles. Pushing himself out of his seat, he walks over to the owner of the voice.

"Oh, you know how much I miss being away from you, Gloria."

The witch rolls her eyes, used to his false flattery. She pushes past him to lay her grimoire down on the table he just vacated.

"Have you found it yet?" he inquires.

Gloria sighs and crosses her hands over her chest. "It's an old spell, Klaus."

He groans, "Tell me something I don't know."

"I know where Stefan Salvatore is."

Klaus perks at that, giving Gloria his full attention.

"Oh?"

Gloria smiles at him. "I'm not going to be doing this free of charge, you know."

She extends a small glass vial to him and Klaus sighs, raising his wrist to his mouth and biting down until his blood wells from the wound. Holding it over the opening, he lets his blood drip into the vial until it was full.

"Satisfied?"

Gloria's smile widens. "Very. Your blood is the only known cure for a werewolf bite... makes for a very hot commodity."

"I never realized you were such a business woman."

She chuckles, "You think I want to tend a bar and dabble in hearth magic all of my life?"

"I love the enterprising attitude. But since you've received your payment, I want my goods."

Gloria tucks the blood away into a pocket and saunters over to a map that was plastered on the wall behind the bar. He suppresses his annoyance and follows suit. She taps her finger against a spot and smirks at him. He stares at it for a moment and then looks back at her.

"You've got to be kidding me."

xxx

The gall of him, Caroline seethed. How dare he just show up at her school, demanding things from her? Impossible things. He thought it was so simple. Just "turn it off." She laughs humorlessly. Ha! Like it was as easy as switching on and off a lamp. In a sudden surge of annoyance, she crumples up the piece of paper in front of her, the design of a flyer she's been working on for the spring formal, and tosses it across the room.

She lets out a scream that echoed through the empty house, bouncing off the walls. Instead of making her feel better, she only felt worse, suddenly assaulted with loneliness. She stared at the empty rooms across the hall and her eyes settled on the door to the guestroom he's made himself at home in. He wasn't there. He'd disappeared off to god knows where and she found herself strangely missing him.

She had not been pleased that he sent her mom away, but she agreed in the end. Not that she was telling him that. It was too dangerous for her, at least for now. But she hated the loneliness, hated the silence that usually greeted her when she got home and most of all, she hated the dinners by herself (because even if a bag of blood should do it, if she doesn't eat, she gets those 'want-to-kill-people' urges; and those urges seem to have only elevated since Klaus moved in).

It was almost like she was regressing. Her mom was always a workaholic and neglectful, but recently things had gotten better. Now it was back to square one. It almost made shacking up with a psychotic hybrid immortal dick okay.

With a loud groan, she collapses into her bed and buries her face into her pillow. She was tired enough from the cycle of sex dreams and nightmares he was giving her, but she couldn't quite sleep. She feels too restless, too anxious. Too many thoughts were occupying her head.

She punches the pillow in irritation. Vampire mind games were normal, but he took his to a whole different level. Drinking vervain wouldn't help either since they were bonded. So in the end, every night he would be able to sleep nice and sound while she tossed and turned and woke up with bags the size of China under her eyes. It wasn't enough that he had to invade her waking hours, he had to invade her unconscious ones, too? It wasn't fair!

And then suddenly, the thought struck her. The spell works both ways. If he can so easily access her dreams, then she can just as easily access his. Suddenly filled with determination, she flipped over onto her back, relaxed her muscles, and shut her eyes. She let herself slowly drift into a state of half-consciousness and then started to reach out to his mind through the invisible chain that linked them together.

It felt like scrambling through darkness at first, occasionally getting bombarded by his current feelings, most of them annoyance and irritation aimed at her. And then suddenly...

She gasped, inhaling salty air. Blinking her eyes open she found herself on a cliff overlooking the ocean.

It was unlike any of the other dreams they've shared. She closes her eyes and feels the salty mist against her skin. She shivers as a blast of icy winter air hits her lungs. She could smell it. The sea.

A sudden wave of familiarity washes over her. She's not quite sure why, only that she knew, for some intangible reason, that she's been here before. That she'd know those rolling hills anywhere; that she's smelled the same sea salt air thousands of times before. A strong sense of longing invades her, fills her up until she feels like she's about to burst.

She opens her eyes again and sees him. Over the horizon. Longer hair, but the same handsome scowl. And then she realizes it was not her own recognition of this place. But his.

xxx

The visit to see Gloria was not as productive as he would've liked, but still, at least now he knew where Stefan was. That was something.

He was still a bit doubtful about the youngest Salvatore's sudden attitude change. He had been pleased, yes, of Stefan's loyalty and attempts to foil the Bennett witch's spell. But something felt... off. Perhaps it was paranoia. He was prone to fall prey to that particular mental malady what with all the attempts on his life by various persons; persons he thought were close to him.

Elijah's eventual betrayal was one of the hardest things he had to endure in his quest to break the hybrid curse. They've been curt with one another, but other than to discuss business, Elijah refused to even look at him. And when he does, he can see the fury, the hate, in his brother's eyes. As far as he could tell, that bridge was burned and all that was left were ashes. Just like the remains of the white oak that gave them life. He had lost a brother. He's accepted that.

He had had high hopes for Stefan. Still does. He had thought that maybe if he could trust again. Just one person. Maybe then... he shook his head. It was weak to depend on others. He had only himself. At least for now. At least until he fixed the hybrid problem. And then he'll create a new family, a better family.

He sat back into his seat and closed his eyes. He had managed to catch a red eye flight back to Virginia, and despite what Caroline thinks, the dreams he's been giving her were taking their toll on him. Not that he was going to let her know that. It's been much too fun to watch her squirm, but his entertainment came at a price.

It took a lot of concentration to manipulate her slumber so, and he decided that they both needed a break. He let himself drift off into a peaceful darkness.

Unfortunately, peace was not to be found.

Perhaps it was the morose thoughts of Elijah and his family that were the cause, but he found himself reliving bitter old memories. Or to be more specific... one in particular.

xxx

This wasn't what she had initially planned. This dream seemed too... tangible. Too real. And most of all, she didn't seem to have any ability to manipulate it in any way. Not like how he had manipulated hers.

Against her better judgment, she follows him. She makes her way down the rocks and grass to where he was and ducks behind some boulders to watch from the distance.

It was the shouting that she heard first. And then the sound of something - no, someone - crashing to the floor and then more shouting.

The sound of a slap echoes in her ears and she winces from it. She sees him, knocked to the ground, dirt smearing his cheek, his eyes a stormy sea green color, the way they do whenever he was particularly upset. Usually Klaus's eyes were blue, but when he was feeling particularly emotional they would change into a strange shade of green or yellow, almost as if his wolf side was taking over. From the looks of him now, he was clearly emotionally unstable. He looked both frightened and furious. An older man stood before him, towering above his crouched form, a sword clenched in his right hand.

"You are not my son. You're a monster," the older man snarled, spittle falling from his lips in his rage. "And it's a wonder why you're not dead."

Behind them, a blonde woman was sobbing into her hands.

"It's a wonder why I do not kill you myself."

The man raises his sword and brings it down. For one horrible moment, Caroline thinks he's going to do it. He's going to kill Klaus. But the sword strikes the ground, sinking deeply into the earth beside Klaus's head.

The man spits on the ground and turns away. Klaus stares at his back for a long moment before he pushes himself up from the ground and yanks the abandoned sword from the ground. He holds it up, pointing it towards his father.

"Then why don't you? Just kill me then! Do it! Kill me!" he screams at the older man.

She'd never seen him like this before. He was still so very distinctly Klaus, but... different. Still angry, still impulsive, but more... more boyish and almost... dare she say it... vulnerable.

The man turns around and walks back towards Klaus until his face was mere inches from the point of the sword.

"Mikael, don't!"

It was the weeping woman. She had lifted her face from her hands, her eyes wide with a look of terror as she looked between the sword that Klaus was holding and the man who was called Mikael.

He ignored her pleads and continued to glare at Klaus.

"You're not worth the blood on my hands, boy. If anything, you should do it yourself. And save us all the trouble," Mikael said dispassionately before slapping away the sword with the flat of his hand.

The sword flies out of Klaus's hand and clatters uselessly onto the ground.

"Pathetic."

When Mikael turns away this time, he doesn't look back. Not once. And Klaus doesn't call him back. It was not Mikael that Klaus turned to. It was the woman.

"Mother..."

The woman quickly averts her gaze away from her son and dashes off in the direction Mikael had left in.

Klaus stared after her. He looked broken. He was broken. She felt it in her bones, in her blood, in her soul.

This was not the evil hybrid Original that she knew. This was the human. This was Klaus at his core, stripped to the barest, most essential emotions. And she ached to reach out to him. She yearned to hold him, pull him into her arms, stroke his head and tell him it's going to be all right. Because she knows this feeling, knows it so well. And a strange thought occurred to her. They were not as different as she initially believed.

She makes the mistake of stepping on a branch and the crack startles him. He looks up and their eyes meet in one terrifying moment.

He looked shocked, completely and utterly shocked to see here there. It was a look she's never seen him wear before. It seemed to be the trend with this dream... in this memory,she realizes.

"You."

His single word jolts them both into sudden consciousness. She opens her eyes and finds herself in a cold sweat, something that seems to be becoming a regular occurrence. She can feel his anger buzzing underneath her skin, feel his wrath in the pit of her stomach. With brutal clarity she realizes the Klaus that she had wanted to reach out to was not the Klaus now. That was the human Klaus and the human Klaus has been dead for far too long. And it was the evil hybrid Klaus that was coming for her.

She'd get her wish. She won't be home alone for long.

xxx

Stefan watched Caroline through her bedroom window. Watched her crumple her paper up, throw it against the wall, hear her screams of frustration. He doesn't know why he came here instead of Elena's, instead of his own home. But somehow, his feet brought him here.

She looked okay. He was glad about that. A little irritable, but she looked... she looked alright. And he realizes he'd been holding his breath. He had been worried. Because she was Caroline; snarky, neurotic, girly Caroline, who often means well, but says the wrong things, does the wrong things. But most of all, she was his friend. So he had been worried. Because she was the last person he wanted to be involved in all this. She had been collateral damage, caught in the crossfire of Katherine's vindictiveness and his own stubbornness. Her only fault was being Elena's friend, his friend.

"Interesting choice to go to. I didn't expect to find you here."

He starts at the sound of the low voice that came from behind him and turns to meet the eyes of the stranger that has become his odd companion.

"Bill."

The older man nods in greeting to him. Stefan had been taken aback at first when he realized where he'd seen those familiar eyes before; when he finally recognized that friendly but stern face as the one that stared back at him from the picture frames he had seen briefly when he was in Caroline's house.

"That's your home, isn't it?"

Bill smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes. "It hasn't been my home in a long while now. I'm not sure I'm welcomed there anymore."

"You're wrong. Caroline... she misses you. She speaks of you often. Well, not to me... but I've heard things."

Bill's smile does reach his eyes this time. But the moment is fleeting, and his expression grows somber.

"Caroline was a great girl. I love my daughter. And it's horrible what has happened to her. But don't worry, Stefan, I am going to fix it. I'm going to fix everything. We can do it together."

Was. Past tense. Something about the way Bill Forbes talked about his daughter felt wrong. There was something dark there that made Stefan want to shudder. Something not quite right about Daddy Forbes, but he shook his head. He needed Bill's help.

Bill places his hand on Stefan's shoulder and smiles. "Welcome back to Mystic Falls."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: A cookie for everyone that got the Heroes reference with the "horn-rimmed glasses" in the last chapter! XD More fun times are ahead and hopefully I get better at updating (didn't realize about a month has gone by since chapter 4… whoops…). Also a big thank you to Paige (skerdypants). No one can ask for a better friend or beta. Without her this chapter would probably sit forever in a folder on my desktop. I hope you guys enjoyed it!


	6. Chapter 6

She's careful as she tiptoes out of her room. She doesn't feel his presence and she lets herself put down her guard just a little. She's sure that if she could feel his wrath from wherever the hell he was the previous night, then she would know if he had come home by morning. She makes her way down the stairs quickly. She just needed to get to school and by the time she got back, maybe he would've forgotten about it. She has her hand nearly on the doorknob when his voice startles her.

"Going somewhere?"

She starts violently and whips around to face him. So much for that optimistic thought.

"How? W-When did you get back?"

She was sure she had not sensed him in the house.

"Just now," he replies calmly. "I waited a block away until I heard you come down the stairs. Thought you might try to sneak out on me otherwise. Seems like I was right."

She berates herself for being so careless, but her nerves were too high strung and she had not thought to check the neighborhood as well as the house.

She tries to look nonchalant and composes herself. She's not going to let him intimidate her. Even if his cold, calm fury was even more frightening than his more fiery outbursts.

She crosses her arms over her chest defensively and says with false calm, "I'm going to school."

She makes another attempt at the door and manages to open it just a crack before his hand was on it, slamming it shut. She was lucky she kept her fingers.

"You're not going anywhere," he growls, the calm facade slipping.

He grabs her by the arm and leads her away from the door. She tries resisting, but his grip is like an iron vise.

"Hey! Get your hands off me!"

Only when they make it into the living room does she manage to pry his hand off her.

"What the hell?"

"Stay out of my dreams!" he shouts.

She flushes a bright red, suddenly flooded with embarrassment for getting herself caught, but she remains obstinately defiant. She wasn't going to let him bully her. Not anymore.

"You started it! You stay out of mine and I'll stay out of yours!"

"That was different! I was messing with you. Pure fantasy," he waves his hand in the air dismissively. "You actually entered a memory! That's invasion of privacy."

She scoffs. "Invasion of privacy?" she echoes, her tone laced with sarcasm. "Are you kidding me? Says the guy who's boarding up at my house uninvited!"

He grips her arm once again.

"I'm not joking, Caroline," he snarls. "Stay out of my head!"

She narrows her eyes at him, getting really fed up with being manhandled. She shoves his arm off of her for what seems like the millionth time and readjusts the strap of her schoolbag that had slipped from her shoulders in their struggle.

"I have class," she huffs before marching out.

He doesn't go after her this time. She's tense until she puts her car keys in the ignition and pulls out of the driveway. It was going to be a long day.

xxx

Contrary to her prediction, school goes by much too quickly and she spends the majority of it short-tempered and moody. Despite her best efforts, her thoughts kept lingering back to the Klaus she saw in the dream-memory. She had felt bad for him then. He didn't seem to have had such a great childhood and she could sort of relate, though her father never told her to go kill herself. That was très harsh. Still, she understood his disappointment in himself. How it felt to never be enough. And again, she felt that clenching in her chest that made her want to reach out and hug him.

He seemed so different from the one she knew now. He'd looked vulnerable, for one thing. Not at all like the irritable menace she deals with on a daily basis. Though to be honest, aside from being an annoying douchebag, he wasn't the terrible beast that Elena and the Salvatores had made him out to be. And then she recalled the Klaus that had threatened her this morning and her mood soured.

She must be going crazy! Klaus should not be hugged. Who he is now and who he was way back then was completely irrelevant. They were like two different people, and it just so happens that the one she liked was from, like, a billion years ago. And she certainly didn't want to go home to face the current Klaus anytime soon.

It was these sort of thoughts that made her drive to the grill instead of back home once school let out.

She had pulled into the parking lot, determined to get her drink on (even if Bonnie declined her invitation and Elena was still not speaking to her), when she notices it. The old blue Cadillac.

Even if she hadn't seen it or its owner in three years, she'd recognize that car anywhere. She used to ride in that car all the time, hide little toys in the cushions, fall asleep in the backseat on long rides. Even puked once on one of those aforementioned trips. Carsickness, however, is now just a remnant of a human past. Other than superhuman force, wooden stakes, and vervain, she was pretty much invincible. Not too bad of a side effect for being one of the undead.

She hastily parks in the empty spot besides the Cadillac and unbuckles her seat belt. Her heart hammers fast in her chest. Her hands shake and she has to clench them together to stop it. Her nerves were getting to her.

She quickly walks towards the Grill and bursts through the doors, starling more than a few patrons. She ignores their stares and quickly scans the restaurant, searching for that face that has always haunted her childhood memories. It had always been him that her mind called forth whenever she aces a test, when she had become cheer captain, when she had won Miss Mystic Falls.

She scanned the room once, twice. Nothing. The place was fairly busy, being the only bar in town and also because it was happy hour. She fights the disappointment that rose in her chest and resigns to the bar, still scanning the crowds, hoping his face would pop up somewhere.

Two drinks in, she thinks perhaps she was just mistaken. He would've called if he was in town, wouldn't he? Then again, she hasn't heard from him in a long while. That only makes her feel worse, and between this most recent disappointment and Klaus, she finds herself compelling the bartender for another shot of tequila.

xxx

He had felt her mood fluctuating during the day, but hadn't been bothered much about it. He was still pissed that she had invaded his memory, that memory in particular, and he reckons it would be better that he doesn't see her, otherwise he might do something he'd regret and cause himself injury.

Besides, he was preoccupied with the fact that Stefan has come back to town. At least, that's what Gloria had told him.

His phone rings and he pulls it out from his back pocket. Checking the caller ID, he notices that it's the elder Salvatore brother.

"What do you want?" he says curtly into the speaker.

"Hey! I think you might want to go pick up your horcrux at the bar. She's getting smashed, and while honestly I love it when Vampire Barbie is drunk, Elena tells me it's not okay to let friends drink and drive."

"Why should I care? She can do whatever she wants. If you're so worried, why aren't you taking her home?"

"Yeah, not really my problem. Besides, aren't you supposed to be protecting her? Remember the whole 'she dies, you die' thing?"

"I highly doubt she's in any real danger in a bar," Klaus says with barely restrained annoyance.

"Whatever. Elena asked me to call, so I did. If anything happens to her, it's on you now. I am conscience-free."

A click signals the end of the phone call, and Klaus angrily stuffs his phone into his pocket. He has other things to worry about. Like why Stefan had decided to come back to town, but has neglected to show his face yet. Or how Elijah was getting impatient with him.

Speaking of the devil, his brother walks into the room with a glass of scotch in his hands.

"Trouble with your little vampire?" he arches one eyebrow at Klaus.

"Sometimes I wonder if you purposely let her take your place in order to torture me."

Elijah smiles, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes.

"Well, you seem to tolerate her presence enough," he says as he runs his hand along the surface of one of the Forbes's counter tops. "She's... passionate. Perhaps in another time, she would have made a perfect Ripper companion for you."

He snorts. "She's too gentle-hearted for that sort of affair."

"She wasn't very gentle-hearted when she replaced me in the spell ritual and bound herself to you in order to blackmail your cooperation," Elijah replies absentmindedly.

Klaus responds with a glower. He doesn't like to be reminded of how he had critically underestimated the little blonde.

Elijah pauses when he reaches one of the framed family photos of a much younger Caroline in a cheerleading costume taken some Halloween eons ago. She must have been twelve or thirteen at the most when the picture was taken. A big smile was plastered on her face, her hair was in pigtails, and her hands were upraised holding pom poms in a typical cheerleading pose. Elijah looked around him then, taking in the modest, worn in, homely decor.

"I didn't think such humble accommodations were your style," he smirks, gesturing with the photo in his hand.

Klaus rolls his eyes and walks over, plucking the picture frame out of Elijah's hands and replacing it back to its original spot.

"It's hardly the Four Seasons, but I do with what I am given," he growls.

His reaction brings a true smile to Elijah's face.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say that the domesticity is wearing off on you."

Klaus fixes him with a withering glare. "Don't be ridiculous."

Elijah shrugs and goes back to sipping his scotch mixed with a bit of AB positive.

"So, where have you hidden away our little sister, Niklaus? I'm tired of waiting for you to find Stefan, and honestly, I don't particularly care if he is found. I am willing to cooperate with the witch and Caroline, but as time passes, I feel like you've been stalling. And I've grown impatient."

"Rebekah is safe. As are the rest of them. I've been trying to explain it to you, Elijah. I'm doing this to protect them."

Elijah laughs, but it's a dark laugh without humor or mirth.

"Protect them? By shoving daggers into their hearts?"

"You know how reckless and unpredictable they are. It was the only way. Don't you understand? I'm trying to hide them from Mikael."

"Mikael is dead."

"You and I both know that is not exactly true. His body is missing, and until I rip his heart out of his chest myself, I refuse to believe that he is not out there plotting all of our demise."

"You've grown more and more paranoid over the years, Niklaus."

"Don't I have reason to be? It is what's kept me alive," Klaus responds.

"There was a time when you trusted me."

"There was a time when I trusted you above all else, Elijah. And there was a time when you trusted me as well. But if you recall, it was you who turned your back on me first."

"That is debatable."

"What I did, I did for your own good."

Elijah's calm demeanor falters for a moment, and he slams his glass of scotch on the table hard enough to crack the surface.

"What you did was out of your own selfishness," Elijah snarls at him. "Without regard for my feelings or anyone else's."

"Feelings," Klaus scoffs. "That was the whole problem, wasn't it? You've gotten soft. How many times have I told you, Elijah? Such human emotions are signs of weakness. I merely helped you remove that which made you weak."

"That was not for you to decide."

"It was to ensure our survival."

"Survival," Elijah repeats. "Is that all you care about? Why, Niklaus? For an eternity alone?"

The words struck a chord and it seemed to be enough to render Klaus speechless.

Elijah regarded him for a moment before speaking, his tone firm and commanding. "Tell me where our family is, Klaus."

Klaus clenches his teeth. "I have a vampire cheerleader to take care of," he replies, turning towards the door. "Maybe if you had your witch pet release the spell we'd have a more productive conversation."

"You can't stall forever," Elijah calls out to him.

He pauses, one hand poised above the door knob, but he doesn't turn around.

"I can sure as hell try."

And then he opens the door, walks out, and slams the door behind him hard enough for it to reverberate the house's foundations.

xxx

She had been into her eighth shot of tequila when Elena and Damon had walked in. Elena was still avoiding her, even more so after the Klaus encounter, and with the alcohol burning through her blood system, she was pretty much done taking the high road. Caroline tosses her head back and takes the shot, the alcohol burning the back of her throat, and then slips out of her stool to march towards the brunette.

"Hey, you! We need to talk!"

Elena glances over at Damon and then back to Caroline.

"There's nothing really to talk about, Caroline."

Caroline scoffs, shaking her head. "No. You don't get to avoid me anymore. It's not fair that you forgive Damon, but you're not forgiving me!"

"Damon didn't lie to me all summer and then go on a suicide mission," Elena replies.

Damon lets out a low whistle and crosses his arms. There was an amused expression playing on his face that irked Caroline.

"Go away, Damon! Elena and I have to talk," Caroline shouted at her maker before reaching out and grabbing Elena by the hand to drag her away. Damon, in a rare moment of maturity, does not follow them, realizing that the two girls had to work out their problems on their own.

Elena fought against her, but Caroline was a vampire and her weak human strength didn't match up. Finally, they reach a corner across the room where a couple was making out. Caroline quickly compels them to move it elsewhere and then turns on Elena.

"You can't keep being mad at me, Elena! I was trying to be a good friend. To both you and Stefan. You can't blame me for trying to do something that you'd probably do yourself for me if I was in your shoes. I've tried so hard to make it right by you, I've apologized a million times, and I just don't get what it is that you need me to say!"

"I'm not mad at you," Elena replies, her voice sounding weary and defeated.

"Sure seems like you are. You ignore my texts and calls, you don't talk to me, and you avoid me at all costs whenever we are within the same vicinity. You had Bonnie revoke my invitation to your house!* What am I supposed to think?"

"You are bonded to Klaus, Caroline," Elena says in a strained voice. "Because of me, you're bonded to a freaking psychopathic serial killer. I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at myself for getting you involved at all! It's my fault!"

Caroline blinks at her, taken aback a little at her outburst.

"But now that you are bonded to him, I can't hang out with you because anything I might say or do might get back to him. That's why I'm avoiding you. Do you think I like it? I hate it! But what am I supposed to do? Until you get the spell lifted, I can't be your friend."

"You think I'm going to, what? Tattle on you to him?"

"No, no! Of course not. But it doesn't change the fact that you two are linked. And none of us knows to what extent is that link. All the places you've been granted invitation into has been extended to him. Who knows what else connects you two? We just can't risk it."

"We?"

Elena bites her lip and hesitates before replying. "... It was Damon's idea."

Caroline throws her hands up in the air.

"Of course it was."

She glances over to the opposite side of the room where Damon stood. He notices her attention and waves at her mockingly. She snorts and crosses her arms over her chest in a huff. He was probably listening in to the whole conversation.

"So are you, like, switching Salvatores now?"**

Elena gives her a hurt look, and she immediately regrets her words. She's angry and frustrated and it doesn't help that she was loaded.

"He is trying to look out for me."

"Yeah. I'm sure it has nothing to do with him wanting to get into your pants," Caroline mutters, knowing fully well that Damon could hear her still. With a frustrated groan, she buries her face into her hands. "How did this get so messed up?"

Elena swallows and gingerly places a hand on her arm.

"I'm sorry, Caroline."

She looks up from her hands and sighs. "Yeah... I'm sorry, too."

What she was sorry about, Caroline wasn't entirely sure. There was too much that has gone wrong for her to feel sorry about. She doesn't even know if the sorry was for Elena or for herself.

Neither of the girls looked at one another. Their eyes were rooted to the floor, their feet unmoving. Both consumed with an overwhelming desire to reach out for one another, to seek comfort in their friendship, but unable to do so.

They were supposed to be on the same side. They are on the same side. But as circumstances put it, they really couldn't be. Caroline knows that she would never betray Elena. Not on purpose, anyways. But Elena had been correct to point out that her bond with Klaus complicated things. It made him privy to her thoughts, her emotions, and gods knows what else. She couldn't be trusted with any of their plotting or any of Elena's secrets should she accidentally or subconsciously reveal them.

As if sensing the lull in their conversation as an invitation to join, Damon was suddenly by Elena's side.

"How are you girls doing over here?"

"Fine until you showed up," Caroline is quick to reply.

Damon casts her a humoring smile. "A bit testy, aren't we, Blondie?"

Caroline groans and shoves past him. She needs to be more hammered for this. She might understand Elena's reasons for pushing her away, but that doesn't mean she has to like it.

More than ever, with the feelings of disappointment from earlier compounding with the new realization that Elena and the rest of the gang will probably freeze her out on any new developments regarding Klaus mixed with her already general feeling of wretchedness, she felt the need to drown her sorrows in alcohol. And perhaps indulge in some serious distraction to make her forget what a mess everything is.

They say you should always be careful of what you wish for because at that moment, distraction came sauntering through the door in the form of one sandy-haired, evil, psychotic Original hybrid.

xxx

The moment he approaches her, the first thing he detects is the strong scent of alcohol. He could count at least a dozen various forms of empty glasses within her vicinity. The barkeep wasn't working fast enough to keep up with the alcohol she needed due to the pesky little vampire immunity system.

She finishes a shot of something amber and then raises her hands up into the air in triumph as a few male patrons raise their glasses to her and laugh along. She giggles in response to their encouragement and was about to order another when he caught her eye.

"Damon told me you'd be here."

She blinks at him, slight surprise registering on her face briefly before turning into annoyance.

"You! You're the cause of all my problems!" she says, her words slurred.

Her emotions are muddled by the alcohol, at times diluted and at others spiking in intensity. In other words, she was drunk. Not that he needed to be bonded to her to know that. Anyone with eyes can tell that she was beyond gone.

She tries standing up, but ends up stumbling and leaning against the dark wood of the bar for support. Out of habit - he was raised a gentleman after all - he extends his hand to help her, but she slaps it away.

She's rather adorable trying to balance on her high heels, her face flushed a pretty pink from all the liquor, and trying to fix him a glare that she was trying to pass as menacing. Somehow, the sight of her evaporates his earlier irritation from his talk with Elijah and he chuckles. She pokes him hard in the chest with her finger in response.

"Don't laugh! I'm serious! It's all your fault!" she insists. "You just had to come to town, wreak havoc, ruin everything! Terrorize Elena, try to kill Bonnie, turn Jenna! Don't think I forgot!"

He is not fazed and he casts her an impatient look, which she ignores in her rant.

"How could you do all that? That was the most horrible, I don't- How could you do that?"

Her eyes were already glistening with unshed tears and he felt her sorrow hit him hard in the chest through their link. It annoyed him to no end. He has never lost an ounce of sleep over any of his murders, and that included Jenna Sommers. She was a means to an end and that was it. He hated that she made him feel guilty, even if it was secondhand. And just as easily as she erased it, she brought his irritable mood back.

"I needed a vampire," he answers simply with a shrug. "It could've been you."

She shakes her head violently. "That! That, too! You locked me and Tyler up. You were going to kill me!"

"Well, Damon nixed that plan, darling. So what's the point of talking about the past when we cannot change it?"

"Why? Why would you do such horrible things?"

He could sense her disgust even without being in tune to her emotions.

"Because I am a monster. That's just what monsters do."

He doesn't know why he keeps humoring her. He could easily just pick her up, throw her over his shoulder, and hide her somewhere nice and secluded where she wouldn't cause him any more headaches.

She shook her head again. "No, you're not. That's the thing that bugs me. I saw you, the real you. And you're not a monster."

She reaches for his hair and starts giggling uncontrollably.

"You look silly with long hair. I like this haircut better," she says in between laughs.

He sighs, his patience wearing thin. Her feelings were all over the place.

"Your dad was a jerk," she says suddenly. "I'm sorry you had to go through that. Nobody should say those kinds of things to other people. No one should have to hear it, especially not from their dad."

He feels the dark tendrils of anger creeping over him. But it was not one of her emotions, it was his own. He doesn't want to be reminded of his previous pathetic human self.

It becomes worse when he feels her irritation at him ebb away, only to be replaced by what he can only construe as pity. Which was even worse, in his opinion.

He scoffs. "I bet you and your friends would have preferred it if I had followed his advice."

"Of course not!" she answers, aghast that he would even say such a thing aloud. "I'd never wish that on anyone! How can you even say that?"

She studies him then, and even in her inebriated state, he feels uncomfortable under her close scrutiny.

"Do you think that's what people wished? That the world would be better off if you killed yourself?"

She has a weakness for broken things, he realizes. That's why she loves planning all those fundraisers and charities. She needs to fix things, little do-gooder that she is.

"You don't know me. Don't pretend that just because you saw one insignificant memory that you suddenly have me all figured out. You don't know anything," he growls.

She scoffs and rolls her eyes. "Ohhh, tough guy. It doesn't matter what you say. I know what I saw. And you," she points a finger at him. "are not as terrible as you want everyone to think."

He grips her hand then, hard enough to make her wince, ignoring the mirrored pain in his.

"No, I'm worse. Do you really think that what I did to you and your little friends was the worst of it? I've murdered, mutilated, pillaged, and plundered for the past several centuries. Done things that you can't even imagine. You know those nightmares I give you? That's just a fraction of it. And you'd do best to remember that."

He releases her and she yanks her hand to her chest, rubbing the sore spot where he had gripped her.

"Why do you always have to be an ass?" she shouts at him. "You think you can scare me, bully me. Well, guess what? It won't work! I'm not scared of you."

"Then you are even more stupid and silly than I thought," he says lowly. In her drunken stupor, she doesn't seem to hear him.

"You think you have everybody fooled, but you can't fool me," she went on. "It's easy to make people hate you. And you do it so well, sometimes it just comes naturally. Especially when... when sometimes it just feels... it feels like there's no one in the world that loves you. Even when you try so hard. But you're never the one."

The words sound worn and used, as if she's said the same sentiment a million times over. He realizes then that it's not that she liked broken things. It was that she was a broken thing. And she's trying to fix herself.

She blinks and he sees shiny tears coat her eyelashes. He felt her willing them not to fall, despite the effects of the alcohol lowering her ability to control her feelings.

"I get it, you know. How sometimes you feel so lonely, you could die and nobody would care."

She catches him watching her and glances up at him. Her eyes are shimmering with unshed tears and she raises a hand up towards his face. He realizes then that he had been mistaken. She wasn't pitying him, she was empathizing with him. All the loneliness, all the disappointments layered upon one another, it was something they shared.

Just as her fingertips touched his cheek, he felt a spark ignite between them, their feelings somehow merging into one. But the moment is brief and it's ruined when a clumsy waitress bumps into her from behind, knocking her forward into him. Her head hits his chest with an oomph.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry! Is your girlfriend okay?"

Klaus just nods and waves the girl off. Caroline groans into his chest, her voice muffled by his shirt.

He places a hand on her back so that she doesn't fall over and finds it strange how easily she fit into his arms. She leans against him to steady herself, his warmth lulling her into calm. They stand there for a while, his arms wrapped around her and her face buried into his chest.

Eventually, she pushes herself away from him once she recalls whose chest she was getting all too comfortable with.

"I need to go wash my face," she announces, trying to sound more sober.

"You do that," he answers perfunctorily.

She frowns at him, feeling irrationally unhappy about his nonchalance, and then starts heading off towards the ladies room.

He watches her go, feeling a little emotionally drained himself.

xxx

She makes her way into the ladies' room, shoving the door a little too hard on her way in. Her sour mood quickly clears the room. She goes over to the sink and attempts to sober up by splashing water on her face. It doesn't work.

"Are you okay in here, Caroline?"

Caroline starts at the voice and turns around to face the owner. It was a familiar friendly face, but experience had told her better.

Her first instinct was to run, but before she could make a move, a hand was on her wrist, applying firm pressure. It was not enough to hurt, but it was a warning gesture nonetheless.

"What do you want, Katherine?"

Katherine sighs. "You recognized me fast. There used to be a time when I was good at masquerading as Elena."

She tilts her head to the side, not releasing Caroline's hand, but not applying any more pressure.

"This could be a learning experience. What gave me away?"

"Elena doesn't have the stench of an evil, psychotic whore," Caroline snaps.

"Ouch. That hurt."

"What do you want Katherine?" Caroline asks again, impatiently.

"Just to chat about some mutual interests," the older vampire answers, the corner of her lips curving upwards in a sly grin. "How about you come with me?"

Caroline yanks her arm forcibly, releasing herself from Katherine's hold.

"I'm not going anywhere with you."

"Look, we can do this the easy way... or the hard way. Remember that I've killed you once-"

"And you can do it again," Caroline finishes with a sneer. "Don't you have any new material?"

"Why come up with new material when the original still works so well?"

"Go to hell."

Katherine lets out a sigh then. "Stefan said you'd probably be difficult."

Caroline's eyes widen momentarily at the mention of the elusive younger Salvatore brother.

"You've seen Stefan?"

Katherine's smug look turns wicked as she watches Caroline's reaction.

"Where is he?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," she teases, a smirk evident on her face. "Let's just say I've run into him recently, but we have since parted ways. Difference of opinion. Stefan's plan was too round-about. I prefer a more direct approach."

And before Caroline can register what was happening, Katherine shoves her so hard that she flies back against the wall. Her head hits it with a resounding crack that would've killed her had she not already been dead. And if the blow wasn't enough to knock her out, the syringe full of vervain certainly did.

In the last moments of her consciousness, as the world starts fading to black, she reaches out to Klaus with a single emotion. Fear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * For the purpose of this story, I'm gonna borrow some True Blood mythology and allow invitations extended to vampires to be revoked.  
> ** This is a direct quote from 3x05. Just me weaving in some canon into an otherwise cracky story.
> 
> A/N: Sorry for the cliffhanger, but the chapter was getting super long and I felt this was a good place to stop it. For those of you reading my occasional teasers on tumblr, apologies for the LIES. I said there was going to be a significant steamy klaroline non-dream scene, but I'm saving that for the next chapter. XD So stay tuned! As always, I have to thank the wonderful Paige for beta-ing my story and hence making it publishable. Also, thank you to all who have been reviewing, commenting or liking my story. It really means a lot and I always appreciate the feedback! =)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: First off, apologies for such a belated update. RL got a bit hectic and I got another massive case of writer's block. BUT! Here's the chapter, finally! And I promise the next chapter will definitely come soon. I'm very anxious to share a particular scene with you all and I thank you for all of your patience and support! Special thanks go to Paige (skerdypants) who, as always, is an unfailingly amazing beta. I hope you guys enjoy this! Likes/comments/reviews are always appreciated!

He's in the middle of paying off Caroline's tab when the pain hits him like a pickup truck to the head. He falls to his knees from the suddenness of it. If he had been any other vampire, he would have passed out from the pain. It would've been a killing blow for a human. He had only recovered when he was bombarded with another wave of anguish. This time, it felt like somebody had just wrenched his arm out of its socket and he felt the stab of a needle into his neck.

He raises his hand to the back his head, where the pain radiated most, and when he pulls it away, the hand is covered in blood. The sight is enough to alarm the bartender behind the bar.

"Oh my god! Are you alright? I'll go call a doctor!"

The man had barely turned his back to make the call when Klaus takes off in a blur into the direction that Caroline had gone in.

He kicks down the door, ignoring the fact that the ruckus he was making would be attracting company. Aside from signs of a struggle, obvious in the broken mirrors and debris scattered across the floor, he stares at an empty room.

Damon had warned him that his little blonde baby vampire was in a state that was likely to get her into some trouble. Little did he know just how much trouble she would get into.

xxx

Katherine deposits Caroline's unconscious body unceremoniously onto the floor and wipes her hands on her pants.

"Be more careful with her!"

Katherine rolls her eyes at her companion. Bill Forbes slips out of the driver side of the car, the old Cadillac that Caroline had spotted. He had risked her recognizing it and him, but he didn't trust Katherine to carry out the plan on her own.

"Don't worry," Katherine assures, "she's completely knocked out. What did you put in that syringe, anyways?"

"Vervain," Bill answers, "with a bit of a kick of something a witch concocted for me. It stills a vampire's mind. She'll have a dreamless sleep."

"You're just chock full of tricks up your sleeves, aren't you, Papa Forbes? I'm surprised you decided to turn your back on Stefan."

"Stefan doesn't have what it takes to kill Klaus. He's too hesitant. He thinks he can save everybody, spare the town. He has too many emotional ties and that makes him a liability. I'm just not willing to take the chance."

"Isn't this your hometown, too?"

"I'm not here to play around. I've been hunting Klaus for a very long time. The best thing I could possibly do for this town is to rid them of him."

Katherine studies Bill Forbes then. She has not known the man for very long, but even for normal vampire-hating standards, the elder Forbes was radical and at times seemed even unhinged. And coming from Katherine Pierce, that was saying a lot.

He kneels beside Caroline and looks down at her, carefully pushing stray strands of hair from her face.

"She still looks so much like my Caroline," he whispers.

Looking at him now he seemed like a caring father, gentle almost. The man had some serious split personality issues, but Katherine wasn't one to judge. He hates Klaus and wants him gone, which happens to coincide with her own goals as well. So as long as their interests converged, he was A-OK in her book.

"She is your Caroline," Katherine answers in a bored tone, arms crossing over her chest as she leans against the side of the blue Cadillac. "Just, you know... the new, improved vampire edition."

Bill stands back up and turns to her, his expression cold once again.

"All vampires are evil. They're monsters. Monsters who have taken somebody pure, somebody good and turned them into a wretched creature of the night."

Katherine scoffs. "No, please tell how you really feel," she drawls sardonically. "You might want to work on that whole vampire hatred thing if you want to get along with your daughter."

"My daughter is dead. All that's left is a beast in her form that only knows blood lust and massacre."

The vehemence in his tone made the hairs on Katherine's neck stand and she couldn't help the nauseous feeling rise in the pit of her stomach. Something is oh, so wrong with Daddy Forbes.

"Alright, that's about enough vampire hate I can take for today. What do we do next?"

Bill's lip curves upwards in a smile that makes her blood curdle. All of his little gestures were rubbing her in the wrong way. Katherine glances about, trying to act casual, but really she's looking for the nearest exit. Survival instincts were kicking in and something was telling her that she needed to get out of there and fast.

"We don't do anything. Your part is done now," Bill says dismissively, smiling a grin that seemed more malicious than kind.

Red alarm bells are now loudly ringing in Katherine's head. This partnership has soured and she doesn't like it one bit.

She feels a presence join them and whips her head around to see the barrel of a pistol aimed at her chest. It was held by a young man, no more than in his late twenties, in a Mystic Falls police uniform. She narrows her eyes and her body tenses.

"What is this?" Katherine growls. The question is for Bill, but she does not take her eyes off the deputy with the gun.

"Like I said, Katherine. Vampires are evil. And now that you've served your purpose, I no longer have a use for you."

"Don't joke, old man. I can easily rip you limb from limb," Katherine snarls before taking off in a blur.

She knocks the deputy's gun out of his hands, slaps his face hard enough that it should snap his neck, and then turns to face Bill. But before she can reach him, the deputy knocks her to the ground. She's astonished by his strength and that she had not taken him out earlier. She only belatedly realizes that his scent was off.

He smelled like wolf.

She quickly maneuvers to flip her assailant over, the flash of gold in his eyes confirming her suspicions. The name tag over his chest reads: J. Lockwood. He's one of the Lockwoods' extensive family members, she realizes. This makes sense since the Lockwoods were one of the head families on the Council. But since when did the vampire-hating Council start employing werewolves? Or was Bill on a rogue vigilante mission of his own?

Her mind was spinning, trying to connect all the dots. But before she can properly register the extent of Bill's diabolical plans, two wooden bullets, fired consecutively, embed themselves into the back of her skull and she was out.

Bill is holding the smoking gun. The deputy shoves Katherine's prone body off of himself with a look of disgust, murmuring a slur against bloodsuckers under his breath.

"What do you want to do with the blonde one?"

"Bring her inside and strap her to the chair. You can dispose of the other one," Bill orders.

The young deputy nods his head in obedience, throwing Caroline's unconscious body over his shoulder.

"Nice work, deputy. It's good to know that the police force at Mystic Falls continues to be comprised of the highest quality of hunters."

xxx

Fear. It had been the last emotion he had felt from her. And the feeling lingers with him, making his heart beat fast and hard in his chest even though it wasn't supposed to beat at all.

She was knocked out; he could tell from the lack of emotions through their link. He had felt relieved that at least she wasn't feeling so terrified anymore because her terror would have distracted him from forming a cohesive plan to save her. Unfortunately, it also meant that she was too deeply sedated for him to even try and penetrate her dreams.

He had tried earlier, but to no avail. Her mind was a cold, vast darkness, completely devoid of any thought or feeling. An utterly dreamless void that was impregnable even for a vampire of his age and power. She was, for all intents and purposes, cut off from him.

Somehow, he'd gotten so used to her constant presence in the back of his mind that without her he was left with a gaping, dark emptiness where she used to fill with warmth and light.

He shook his head and composed himself. He had to find her. He tries again to reach somehow, but it's like falling into a black hole and he's grasping at straws.

He rages at the severance of their connection and lashes out at the pictures of her smiling innocently at him in the frames that sat on the Forbes' kitchen counter. The pictures clatter to the ground, the glass splintering in spider web fashion.

Suddenly, there's an urgent knock on the door that distracts him from his currently frustrated state. He thinks it's Damon, maybe with Bonnie or even the precious Gilbert doppelganger herself in tow. He had made the call out to the eldest Salvatore the moment he found Caroline missing. It's been nearly half an hour now and he had been irritated at their slowness to react. She was their friend for god's sake, and all they were doing was twiddling their thumbs while she's been taken by god knows who. Do these people know nothing about loyalty?

He marches to the door and yanks it open; his impatience has made him short-tempered. He's about to scream at Damon, but instead finds himself staring at the younger Salvatore brother.

Stefan doesn't bother with a greeting or an explanation about where he's been or what he's been up to. He just pushes past Klaus and into the house. For a moment, Klaus is resentful that he has an invitation into Caroline's home.

"Stefan... I was wondering when you'd show your face."

"It's not like it was going to be easy coming back here after I saved your ass."

Klaus arches an eyebrow at him. "And I thank you, although I'm not entirely convinced you did it out of the goodness of your heart."

"Does it matter?"

"No," Klaus says carefully. "Not right now. What do you want? I have more important matters to attend to."

"I know. Caroline's missing."

He tenses for a moment, wondering just exactly how much Stefan knew. The young vampire has been missing for days, and now he just shows back up out of the blue without so much as an explanation and with knowledge that he shouldn't know. Something felt wrong and Klaus couldn't shake it off.

"... She is. And if you know that, you have to know that I need to find her. So if you wouldn't waste my time-"

"That's why I'm here. If you want her back then-"

Before Stefan can continue, Klaus had slammed him into the opposite wall hard enough to leave a dent in the plaster. If Caroline was here, she would probably complain that he was tearing her house apart, but she wasn't and that was entirely the problem.

"Where is she?" Klaus growls lowly.

"Maybe I'd tell you if you removed your hands from crushing my windpipe," Stefan chokes out.

Klaus loosens his hold, but doesn't quite back off. Stefan scowls at him and brings a hand to his neck, rubbing the sore spot.

"I'm here to help you."

"You march in here, knowing things you have no business knowing, and you expect me to just trust you?"

"I saved your life!" Stefan snarls back, shoving the older vampire away. "And for your information, I am here to help save Caroline. You need me if you want to get her back."

He's not quite sure he believes the youngest Salvatore. Stefan's appearance had been timed too coincidentally with Caroline's kidnapping, and Klaus was still unsure of why Stefan had intervened with the original spell that now bonded Caroline and him together. He couldn't trust Stefan. Then again, hasn't Elijah always warned him of his paranoia?

While the younger vampire's motives were unclear, one thing was certain: Stefan had the answers Klaus needed to get back Caroline.

Klaus takes a step back to give Stefan some space. The youngest Salvatore straightens his shirt collars and regards the older vampire with a serious expression. Klaus stares back for a moment. He studies Stefan, the gears of his head turning almost audibly, before finally speaking.

"Tell me what you know."

xxx

She wakes up groggily, like her eyelids were leaden and weighed down. She tries to raise her hands to rub away at the cobwebs that seem to be coating her eyelashes, but quickly finds out that her hands are chained behind her. Her eyes fly open and panic sets in. She knows this feeling all too well.

No, not again, she thinks. She couldn't believe she'd let herself get into this kind of situation. She had promised herself that she'd never be so careless and weak to get herself kidnapped again. She's gone through torture more than enough for one lifetime and she wasn't ready for a repeat performance.

She tries to pull on her chains a few times, but it's futile. Even so, she pulls and yanks and struggles against them until her wrists are rubbed raw.

Finally exhausted, she lets her arms go limp and tries to think of a way out of her situation. And that's when she thinks of him. Klaus.

She's still feeling a bit strange after waking up from whatever tranquilizer Katherine had shot her up with. She looks around at the sparse, empty room that held her captive, letting the silence ring in her ears. And then she realizes why she felt so strange. She was utterly alone. She couldn't feel Klaus.

Usually there wasthis phantom sense of him always lurking around in the back of her mind. Trickles of his emotions are a ghost of a presence that she had grown familiar with. And now, suddenly, the feeling was gone.

Well, maybe not gone. She tried focusing through the cloudiness of the sedation to feel just the tiniest sense of Klaus from the other end of their link.

They cannot by any means talk telepathically, unless you count the dreaming. But if she musters strong enough emotions, that usually gets his attention.

She tries repeating his name in her head, sending with it a wave of panic and urgency. She uses the memories of how Katherine had bashed her head against the wall. Recalls the little terrified moments when she realized what was happening before the vervain and whatever it was - she's certain now that there was something more that added an extra kick to the venom Katherine injected her with - finally took her under.

The dreaded feeling of loneliness consumes her as silence continues to answer her mental pleas. It wasn't working. Whatever they had given her also seemed to make it more difficult for her to reach out to him. She can still sense the link, but it was slippery. Like a wet bar of soap that jumped from her grasp every time she tried to grip harder.

She almost gives up when she feels a surge of his surprise. She can tell from the link that he's upset and agitated. If Katherine's sudden abduction freaked her out, then for sure it pissed him off.

She sends him a wave of relief for being able to reach him and she can feel him wrestle his emotions to something akin to calm. But now came the hard part. How the hell was she going to help him find her?

She clenches her fist, noticing that her ring was gone, and pulls again at her chains. The act causes her to rub against the sore spots on her wrists that didn't seem to be healing as fast as they should. It was probably due to the vervain still in her system. She moves the fingers of her right hand, letting the naked skin where the ring used to be rub together.

She looks again around the room. It's a dark, stone-walled place. Her shoes had fallen off in the scuffle in getting her here and so her feet are bare. She uses them to feel the ground. Her feet touch dirt and bits of pebbles and gravel. This means she's on the ground floor and probably somewhere out of the city and town. She sniffs the air and is greeted with the scent of pine and more dirt. Perhaps a cabin in the woods?

After deducting as much as she possibly could from her surroundings she closes her eyes and tries to send all of these physical sensations to Klaus. The feeling of the dirt floors, the chains, the cold draft from the slightly open skylight above her, the scent of pine. They were the breadcrumbs she could give him to help him find her.

It's a long shot, but if he's at all as smart as he claims, maybe, just maybe, he can piece things together.

She repeats the exerciseand tries rebuilding the room in her mind's eye. Praying and hoping and wishing that he gets it.

Dirt, chain, cold, pine. Dirt, chain, cold, pine. Dirt, chain, cold, pine.

A slap across her face, hard enough to move her head, startles her out of focus.

Her eyelids fly open and she's greeted with a menacing look from a rough-looking twenty-something. She's only had a moment to memorize the man's face before it's yanked out of her sight by a dark figure.

"You touch her again without my permission and I'll put a silver bullet in you, do you understand?"

And then a chill runs down her spine. She recognizes that voice. Her heart, undead as it was, starts pounding in her chest. It couldn't be real. The voice that issued the threat was one that sprang from her childhood memories. And sure enough when the dark figure turned so that a shaft of light could shine on his face, her suspicions were confirmed.

"Daddy?"

He smiles at her, the crows feet around his eyes crinkling.

"Hello, sweetheart."

She blinks at him in disbelief.

"I'm so sorry for missing all those football games."

xxx

Damon shows up belatedly with Elena right behind him. They were both shocked by Stefan's presence. His unexpected homecoming being the source of much awkwardness for what Klaus saw as a budding romantic interest between Elena and the older Salvatore brother. The tension in the air was thick enough to slice through with a knife, but Klaus is impatient and not at all amused by the drama of the love triangle between the Salvatores and Elena Gilbert.

"If we're all done gaping at one another, I'd like to move on with the plan to get Caroline back," he drawls.

They were wasting time and now that Stefan was there, he cared little for the help that the two newcomers could provide. Not only did he hate Damon, but Elena is human and thus pretty much useless to any rescuing endeavors. Not that Damon or Stefan would allow her to get into harm's way anyways. Unfortunately, this was the rescue team he had. Elijah had taken Bonnie somewhere out of town earlier in the day and was unreachable. It was an excellent example of poor timing if there ever was any. The more paranoid side of Klaus's brain had pondered their absence as more than coincidental, but he couldn't figure out why.

"Bill is behind all of this. He's a hunter and a member of the Council, but I suspect it goes deeper than just some simple vampire hunting. Katherine and I had run into him when we went looking for Mikael," Stefan explains.

Stefan had cast a quick look in Klaus's direction when he mentioned Mikael, but if Klaus reacted to it, then he didn't show it. His face was impassive.

"He promised us that he knew a way to kill a Hybrid, but what he needed was back in Mystic Falls, so I came back with him. Katherine, on the other hand, had presumably decided to hang back since she knew you had a grudge against her," Stefan says the latter part to Klaus. "I thought since he was Caroline's dad that we could trust him, but then weird things started happening. Before I parted ways with Bill, he had been having secret meetings with a few of the extended Lockwood family members."

"Like you said, he's on the council. What's so weird about meeting with other council members?"

"It's weird when those council members are all werewolves," Stefan clarifies.

"There are other werewolves than Tyler Lockwood?"

Stefan merely nods.

"I tried to confront him about it, but he dodged the questions. That's when I thought something was off. He has since been even more secretive and I had not even known he brought Katherine back into the picture until now. I don't know what he's up to, but one thing's for sure," Stefan turns to Klaus then who had been listening intently. "He is very determined to kill you. And he doesn't care what it takes to do it."

"Including kidnapping his own daughter to get to me."

"Are you sure Bill Forbes is the one behind this? He's Caroline's dad. He would never hurt her. How do you know it's not Katherine behind it all?" Elena questions.

"Kidnapping is not really Katherine's style. If she wanted Caroline dead, she would have just killed her. I suspect she is only a pawn in the big picture," Stefan replies.

"Katherine is nobody's pawn," Damon snorted. "Especially not some old geezer's. Hunter or not, he's just human. I say we get in there, snap the old man's neck, pluck Vampire Barbie out, easy peasy."

"Don't underestimate Bill. Like I said... he's a man of mystery. And it seems like he's capable of pulling more than a few strings around here," Stefan answers. "Besides, we don't know yet where he's taken Caroline. There are hundreds of secret vampire hunting places in and around town. That's why I came to you guys. I can't possibly scour the town for it all by myself. At least not in time to find Caroline before..." Stefan trails off, but they all get the gist of it.

Klaus had been caught up with Stefan and his epic narrative of how he got entangled with Bill Forbes that she takes him by surprise.

He takes a sharp intake of breath as he feels her presence filling that void he had been harboring since her abduction. The others notice his change in demeanor and instantly go on alert.

"What's wrong?" Stefan had risen from his seat, and was making strides towards Klaus.

"It's Caroline. She's awake."

"What's happening?" Elena asks panicky, glancing back and forth between the two Salvatore brothers.

"Shut up," Klaus snaps.

They all cleverly obey.

"They got her in chains..." Klaus says after a moment. "And they took her ring."

"How do you know that?" Damon asks.

"I can feel what she feels. Our link is weak from whatever they gave her, but-"

Suddenly Klaus goes quiet, his brows furrowed in concentration, his eyes closing to focus.

"But what?" Elena asks. Stefan notices that she looks to his brother this time.

Damon merely shakes his head silently and watches Klaus as he continues to close his eyes in concentration.

"Clever girl," Klaus whispers under his breath, more to himself than to his companions. And then suddenly his smile turns into a wince and he brings his hand to his face, rubbing the area.

"What's going on? What is she telling you?" Elena persists.

Stefan doesn't say a thing and just continues watching Klaus, his expression serious. When Klaus opens his eyes again, he looks towards Stefan, a grin gracing his lips once more.

"What do you know about a stone cabin in the woods?"

xxx

She still couldn't believe he was there. A surge of hope rises in her. It was his car parked outside the Grill. She was right. Maybe her mom called him and he had followed Katherine when he saw her get attacked. He was here to save her. Just like he always did when she was younger. Everything was going to be alright. Her dad was here. Everything is going to be fine.

"Daddy, I'm so glad to see you! You need to help me get out of here. There are bad people-"

Her father merely strokes her hair, pursing his lips together to shush her. Somehow the usually comforting gesture feels off.

He smelled different, wrong somehow. Not like the familiar old citrus-y scent she had always associated with him as a child, back when he used to take her to the orchard to pick oranges and tangerines in the summer.

"There's no bad people, sweetheart. The only bad person here... is you."

A chill runs down her spine.

"W-what are you talking about? It's me, dad! Caroline! You have to let me go! These people are crazy!"

Bill Forbes takes a step back, an expression of genuine sorrow on his face as he shakes his head.

"I can't do that. You're a vampire now."

Suddenly, it feels like her heart had dropped to her stomach. She felt like she was going to throw up.

"You're not my Caroline anymore."

The nausea is quickly replaced by fear as her father's words set in. He knows about her secret. He knows she's a vampire.

"But I am! Dad, you're talking crazy. It's me, it's Caroline!"

"You have no idea how difficult this is for me... to see you like this. A vampire," he spits out the word as if it burned his tongue. "A monster. It was all my fault. I should've been there for you. Before this… this tragedy happened."

"It's okay, dad. It really is. I'm still me!" Caroline pleads. "I'm still me! Dad! Please!" She tries to raise her arms, but her wrists were still chained to the chair. "I'm still your daughter!"

Bill only continues to shake his head at her, his expression stern.

"You're not my daughter."

He cuts his arm then and the scent of blood fills the air. Her eyes darken and her fangs extend involuntarily. It's been too long since she last eaten.

"You see? You're just a vampire."

"No! I'm Caroline!" she insists.

He shakes his head again. "No, no. My Caroline is dead."

"You're wrong! I'll prove it! Don't you remember all those times when you helped me with my homework? How much I hated doing the multiplication tables back in the third grade, but you told me to keep at it? But I still failed my test and then you spent two whole weeks inventing that stupid board game to help me learn. You even came up with a song and everything! And when I took the test again, I aced it. Don't you see? It's me! It's Caroline! I'm still in here!"

He looked pained then, continuously shaking his head as if to physically rebuff her words.

"No, no you're not. You're just a rabid animal, a dangerous beast, wearing her face."

She shakes her own head, trying to raise her arms again and ignoring how painfully they rubbed against her restraints in her efforts to reach out to her dad.

This can't be happening. This was a nightmare. One of Klaus's nightmares. All she needs to do was wake up.

"And do you know how to cure a rabid animal?" he asks her.

She stares at him, tears stinging her eyes.

"You can't," he breathes, he looks almost remorseful.

Her mouth drops open, the shock clear on her face.

"W-what are you going to do with me?" she had tried to sound brave, but a quiver still leaked into her voice.

Bill has the decency to look choked up. Their eyes meet, but he quickly averts his from her pleading expression. He paces the room for a moment, mumbling to himself, before answering.

Caroline strains to hear what he says, but it was all nonsensical, like he was having a conversation with himself. He seems on edge, conflicted. In the end he turns towards her, his expression firm once more.

"And even if you're really in there... you're bonded with Klaus," he states. "There's no other way to go about it..."

She tries to swallow, but finds that her mouth is dry.

"There's only one thing I can do..."

His tone is resolute. She realizes then all too painfully that this was no nightmare. This was reality. Her dad thinks that she's a monster. He wasn't here to save her. No one is going to save her.

The terrifying thought only lasts so long before it's replaced by searing pain. He had pulled on a lever on the wall which opened up the skylight above her head. The noon sun bathes her with burning light, blistering and peeling her skin. Through the blinding pain, she hears her own screams echo back at her in the little stone room.

xxx

He might have complained about his rescue team, but that was before they started on the torture. Usually an Original Hybrid with his age and strength could easily keep up with the Salvatores as they combed through the immense woods surrounding Mystic Falls for the elusive stone cabin, but more than once he found himself stumbling from the pain that came through his link with Caroline.

It's been hours since she last tried to purposely send him any messages and her kidnappers had begun a ritual torture.

"What are they doing to her now?" Stefan asks. His tone was even, but Klaus could see how upset he is through the clenching of his fists.

Klaus raises his hands up and peels back the sleeves of his shirt. The skin was red, peeling and blistering like a severe sunburn. The skin burns just as fast as it heals and when Klaus pulls the sleeve back in place, he grimaces.

"Personally, I preferred it to the vervain they were spraying on her earlier." Glancing up the sun, already hanging low on the west horizon, he says, "The sun is setting soon. They'll have to stop then. I just can't believe they've subjected her to this for hours."

"Caroline's strong," Damon says, looking up from his cell phone. "If anybody can survive this, it would be her."

The statement takes Klaus aback. He has never heard the eldest Salvatore to compliment anybody in such a straightforward manner. Not even his precious Elena Gilbert.

"Strong or not, we have to find her," Klaus says, straightening himself up. "And when we do, I'm going to enjoy ripping out the spines of the bastards who took her and drink their spinal fluids."

Stefan doesn't even bat an eye at his colorful imagery. He probably has similar intentions the way his knuckles were turning bone white from their clenching.

"I was sure that the cabin would be here," Stefan growls. "There must have been a spell cast on it to hide its location."

Damon glances around at his surroundings. "Well, the spell's certainly working alright. We've been out here for hours. We need a witch, and Elena still hasn't called me yet about whether or not she's found Bonnie."

As if Damon had invoked her by calling her name, his phone buzzes into life.

"It's Elena."

He presses the phone to his ear to say hello only to repeat it again several times.

"These damned woods have the suckiest reception," he complains.

Stefan and Klaus let Damon wander away in search of a better signal. With Damon out of range, the two of them stand in silence for a long moment. Finally, Klaus decides to speak.

"You never told me why you saved my life back in Chicago."

Stefan crosses his arms before he answers. "It was misguided. I was trying to save Caroline. And I trusted Katherine."

"You care a lot for Caroline," he doesn't say it like a question.

"When she turned, I promised her that I wouldn't let anything happen to her."

"No offense, mate, but you're doing a bit of a poor job," Klaus smirks, but it doesn't reach his eyes. "You know, if you had just let Elijah go through with the ritual, none of this would be happening."

Stefan lets out a bitter laugh. "Believe me, nobody regrets saving your life more than I do. Maybe it's about time I realize I can't save anybody."

"Now let's not be so melodramatic, Stefan," Klaus drawls. "You're both cut from the same cloth, you know. She was trying to save you, too."

"I'm not worth saving."

"Such things never stop her from trying. She's stubborn like that."

When Klaus smiles this time, it does reach his eyes and Stefan notices.

"You're part of the rescue team, too. You want to save her just as much as the rest of us."

Klaus's smile is immediately wiped from his face.

"Don't try and romanticize me, Stefan. I'm here to save myself. She's bonded to me and thus a liability. Nothing more."

His tone is resolute, but for some reason, Stefan can't help but doubt him. Ever since he came back to Mystic Falls, he's noticed a change in Klaus. Something different from the way he had been when they had been terrorizing the Eastern sea board together. And he suspects it has something to do with a certain peppy, stubborn, blonde cheerleader.

Damon's scream breaks his train of thought. Stefan and Klaus both exchange a quick look before they both make a mad dash towards the direction Damon was in.

Breaking through the bushes, they find a rather ruffled Damon.

"She tried to bite me!" Damon complains with his hand pressed to his neck. Blood seeped through his fingers.

To their astonishment, lying at his feet was a very mummified, but very alive Katherine Pierce.

xxx

Being bonded to Klaus had certain advantages. She had noticed since the beginning that she healed much faster than even the usual super healing of vampires. And her strength and extrasensory perception at times seemed equally elevated. Unfortunately, all these things worked against her favor when it came to torturing. She healed faster which meant the pain lasted longer. Especially when it came to burning in the sunlight. The rate of which she burned and healed were so evenly matched, it became a continuous flow of agony.

She was naïve to think that the things Jules and Brady did were the worst that could have happened to her. Her father proves to be much more methodical and efficient with his torturing techniques than either of the werewolves. It was as if he was pushing the limits to see how much pain she could endure.

Just when she thought she couldn't take it anymore, when she started wishing he would just kill her and get it over with, reprieve comes in an unexpected way. She is so exhausted from the pain that she found herself in a half-unconscious state.

In her mind's eye, she's standing on a beach with the pristine turquoise sea before her and lush green hills behind her. The sky is overcast, not allowing a single ray of sunlight to pass the thick grey clouds. Even so, that didn't take away the beauty of the gorgeous seaside.

The air is crisp and clean, and she takes a deep breath. It's a stark contrast to her actual surroundings and for a moment, she's lulled by the sounds of the waves, temporarily forgetting the fact that she is currently chained to a chair and being tortured by her vampire-phobic father.

"I recalled seeing quite a few beach travel guides in your room."

She whirls around and sees Klaus standing before her, hands clasped behind him. He looks out of place in his usual autumn Mystic Falls attire.

"This is a beach I once visited. It's off the west coast of Antigua. It's now run over by tourists and the like, but this is how I recall it in my memories."

He turns from her and looks towards the ocean.

"Usually it's sunnier, but I thought you'd appreciate my slight modification."

She is still a little stunned at seeing him. He's manipulated her dreams several times before, and she has once manipulated his. But never had they shared a dream that was, dare she say it, pleasant.

"I… I tried to reach you before, but they gave me something. It made it difficult to feel the bond."

"I know. I was surprised myself when I found I could enter this dream."

"They probably wanted to keep me exhausted as a form of torture so they didn't give me another dose. It would've meant they were going to allow me to rest."

"It was very clever of you to send me the clues about the cabin."

"I did the best I could under the circumstances. The room they had me in had no windows… not regular ones anyways."

She swallowed as she recalled the skylight that was her main instrument of torment. Even now she can still feel the burn. She wraps her arms around her body and hugs herself.

"You're being very brave."

His words are comforting and somehow that makes it all that much worse. If big bad Klaus had to comfort her, then how dire her situation must be.

Tears fill her eyes and her voice cracks when she answers. "I'm not brave at all. I'm terrified."

And she lets the tears she wouldn't allow to fall in reality to fall now. Sobs wrack her body and she buries her face in her hands.

"I can't do this. I can't."

"You have to. Fight through the pain, sweetheart."

"I'm trying," she croaks. "I'm trying, but I don't know if I can. I'm not strong enough."

"You can. You're strong. Stronger than anyone gives you credit for."

Suddenly, she feels a pair of hands take hers, pulling them away from her face. She looks up and stares into blue-green eyes that look just like the color of the tides that are beating against the beach they are standing on.

"I'm coming for you, Caroline. And when I do, I will tear all those that have hurt you apart, limb by limb. I will make it rain with their blood. That I promise you."

His words shouldn't comfort her so, but they do. He looks determined, so very determined and fierce that she can't help but believe him despite everything.

"I'm coming."


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Warning! this chapter is particularly graphic, so proceed with caution. Otherwise, enjoy. I know you guys have been patiently waiting for this update and I continue to be immensely touched by all of your support. All reviews/comments/likes are appreciated. Sincere thanks to the amazing Paige (skerdypants) for beta-ing!

The wind whips her hair into her face and Bonnie shrugs into her coat, pulling the collars up to cover her ears. She glances both ways before crossing the road and then stops in front of a door with a sign that reads: Eddie O'Hare, Attorney at Law.

Despite the sign, Bonnie knew better. It is just a cover for a speakeasy known to cater to vampires, witches, werewolves, and the occasional human who is bound to be in for a surprise.

"You should turn it off."

Elijah had somehow managed to sidle besides her in that silent way of his that always unnerves her.

"What?" She frowns in confusion, trying to compose herself after being startled by his sudden appearance by her side.

He glances down at her purse and as if on cue, her phone comes to life.

Bonnie sighs and reaches inside to take out her buzzing cellphone.

"Are Originals psychic as well now? I thought that was witch territory."

Elijah smiles a close-lipped smile, but there seems to be some humor in his eyes. "It's only because it's been ringing every five minutes."

"It's Elena again. This is like her hundredth call. I should just pick up and tell her I'm busy or something so she'd stop freaking out."

Elijah, who was walking towards the door, turns to her and shakes his head. "Let it go to voicemail. We have more important matters to attend to. And the less anyone back in Mystic Falls knows, the better. This way, there's less of a chance it'll get back to Klaus."

"Yeah, wouldn't want him to know we're onto his blood trafficking enterprise," Bonnie drawls. Underground vampire black markets were the last thing she wanted to deal with. "Are you sure this is the place?"

"Yes, the witch that runs the establishment has a history with Klaus. She's the one dealing his hybrid blood to the werewolves I'm sure."

"You think he's trying to build that hybrid army of his again?"

"That's what we are here to find out, Miss Bennett."

"Okay... I'm still not quite sure what you want me to do about it, though."

"I thought perhaps since she's your kind, she might be more willing to confide in you than with me."

"Yes because 'our kind' all know one another and have tea to trade spell recipes for witch cookies and discuss the different types of brooms we like best."

She waits on bated breath for a chuckle or maybe a smile. Something beyond the carefully controlled stoicism he always displays. But though there's slight amusement playing in his eyes, Elijah continues to stare at her with his unwavering calm expression. A beat pass by and still nothing from the Original.

"Never mind… Let's just get this over with."

"Aren't you going to turn off your phone first?"

It was now incessantly beeping with text messages from Elena who had since given up on Bonnie picking up any of her calls.

Bonnie sighs and reluctantly switches off her phone. She makes a mental note to send Elena an apology text later, and then stuffs the phone into her coat pocket before walking through the door Elijah holds open for her.

As she passes by him he says to her in a musing manner, "I had some witch cookies before, horrible things. But some tea would be rather quite nice right now, though I think Gloria is a bourbon girl."

Bonnie can't help but find herself grinning. Maybe Elijah wasn't made out of stone after all.

Her amusement is quickly replaced with apprehension the moment she steps across the threshold. Magic emanated from down below, sending a shiver down her spine and causing the hairs on her arm to stand on their ends. The time for jokes was over and she is reminded of the reason why they were in Chicago in the first place. With careful, steady steps she follows Elijah's lead down into the darkness.

xxx

Katherine's eyelids slowly flutter open as she tastes the familiar warm, coppery taste of blood on her tongue.

"She's coming to."

She recognizes this voice, remembers it once whispering sweet adoring words into her ear. She looks up, blinks away the cobwebs, and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand smearing the blood.

"Stefan," she croaks, her voice is still raw.

His expression is concerned, and for a moment she thinks it's 1864. Back when he used to adore her, back when he didn't look at her with loathing and hate and distrust. She'd never admit it aloud, but after years of running, she wanted someone to catch her. She had wanted it to be him. But he is quickly pulled away and soon, another face from her past haunts her. Klaus.

How quickly heaven turns into hell.

"You best be cooperative, Katerina, if you value your life."

Her eyes now shoot wide open. She struggles to scramble into an upright position only to find a rough, firm hand pushing her back down on the sofa cushions.

"I do not have time to chase you right now, so sit still or I'll make sure you wish you didn't survive whatever Bill Forbes put you through."

She swallows, tasting reminiscent blood in her mouth. Staring into Klaus's cold eyes, she wishes that she had drunk more. She was going to need all the strength she can get to get out of this one.

"What... what do you want from me?" she asks, her voice uncharacteristically shaky.

"Where's Caroline?"

The question had come from Stefan, who was standing just behind Klaus with his arms crossed.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" she says in a sing-song voice, slowly regaining her usual arrogance now that the blood had time to take effect.

Her sass is met with a hand wrapping itself around her throat. She chokes and sputters, her hands clawing futilely at Klaus who continues to painfully crush her trachea in his iron grip.

"I'm a little short on patience, my dear. So how about you answer our questions," Klaus begins. There's a cruel smile playing on his lips that she recognizes though she wish she hadn't. "And I won't cut up this pretty face of yours. Personally, I think that with that wicked mouth of yours, you'd look wonderful with a Cheshire smile."

He illustrates his intentions by drawing a gleaming edged knife lightly across her cheek.

For a moment, she just gasps for breath and stares into the eyes of her captors. And then, to both Klaus and Stefan's surprise, Katherine laughs in the face of the threat. The sound of her voice is hysterical even to her own ears, but what does it matter?

"Why should I help you? Either way, you're planning on killing me. Whether it is now or later makes no difference to me."

"I'd make sure that you suffer well before killing you if you are uncooperative."

"Your threats mean nothing. Like I said, I'm already as good as dead. And if you kill me, you'll never find Caroline in time and then you'll be dead. So if I'm going down, I rather see the two of you with me in hell."

Frustrated with Katherine's insolence, Klaus is ready to tear out the vampire's heart right then and there, but Stefan's hand on his shoulder stills him.

"What do you want in exchange for information on Caroline?" the younger Salvatore asks.

You could almost see the calculations clicking away behind her eyes as Katherine plots how to get the best leverage in her captive situation.

"I want immunity."

"Immunity?" Klaus repeats in hiss.

"Yes. Immunity from any form of revenge, wrath, and retaliation; physical or otherwise by you, the Salvatores, and/or any of your pesky little minions and family members. All past grievances against me are to be pardoned and you promise to leave me alone for the rest of eternity."

"That is a lot of demands. You're overreaching," Klaus drawls impatiently.

"I think it's a rather cheap trade-off if you consider the circumstances," Katherine retorts. "How much do you value Caroline's well-being?"

Klaus narrows his eyes at her. A long silence draws out between the two of them.

"It's for Caroline, Klaus," Stefan says, not that Klaus needs reminding. "Or is your petty grudge with Katherine worth more than she does?"

Katherine carefully watches the older vampire hybrid. A low growl emits from his throat.

"Fine," he bites out through clenched teeth. "You have my word that you will be pardoned and granted immunity once we get Caroline back."

Katherine's smile is all feline, like the cat that ate the canary.

"Now tell us where they're keeping her."

Katherine licks her lips. "I'll do you one better... I'll take you."

xxx

Her dad had left, having more important business to attend to than torturing his daughter, and so he leaves her in the hands of some Mystic Falls deputies. All of which just happen to be of the werewolf variety.

They're a cruel bunch, and they take turns stabbing her with wooden stakes in-between dosing her with vervain.

"She's a tough one, ain't she?" one of them laughs darkly. "A regular vampire would be dead by now. But she heals fast. Even with the shots of vervain."

"She's special. She's bonded to one of them Originals. Can't kill those Originals the same way you kill normal vampires," another replies, he's older and while he was much less taunting than her younger tormentor, he also knew how to make her hurt the most.

"So how do we kill her?" This came from a third werewolf. She knew there were two others guarding the door, but how many total she couldn't even begin to think. Her father seemed to have formed his own little army.

"That's what Bill left to go find out."

"Yeah, well I hope he has some more of that hybrid blood when he gets back. The full moon is coming soon."

The younger deputy, though she is now starting to suspect that they weren't real deputies at all, is downright ecstatic, talking all excitedly like an anxious heroin addict looking forward to another hit.

They continued talking as if she wasn't there. It didn't surprise her. They didn't think of her as a person, because she doubted anyone could treat another human being the way they have treated her.

She begins to tune them out and closes her eyes. She would attempt to try and reach Klaus, but she feels too weak to do so. The shots of vervain had rendered their link muddy once more. So instead, she finds refuge in her memories, replaying happy ones. But because many of the happy memories that involved her father have now been corrupted, she tries her best to recall the more current ones. Somehow, Klaus manages to get tangled in them.

There was such a fine line between them, but somewhere along the way she found thoughts of him to be comforting. His sarcasm, his penchant for British pet names, his unfailing ability to annoy her on end about the little things suddenly became… not so annoying. She rifled through the dreams they shared, studying them with a critical mental eye. He really wasn't so bad. Hell, he was downright sweet in the last one, even if he was promising maiming and murder on her behalf.

"I'm coming for you, Caroline."

He had promised her that and she believed him. So come and get me, she thought to herself. She tries willing it to him despite the effects of the vervain and whatever else was in the syringe they gave her.

"Hey!"

A hard knock against her head shook her from her concentration.

"Don't be going to sleep on us, sweetheart."

She narrowed her eyes at the werewolf, not liking the way he used the term 'sweetheart.'

"It's been at least four hours already. Where the hell is he?"

"Just calm down, will ya? He'll be back soon enough, so quit your yapping."

The younger one scoffs. "Fine, then...I guess I'll just have to find something fun to do to pass the time."

He turns back to Caroline then, flashing her a malicious grin. He'd look handsome if it weren't for the hard cruelty of his lips.

He pulls a revolver out of his side holster and takes out the normal bullets, replacing them with one wooden one. He spins the barrel before snapping it back into place.

"How about a game of Russian Roulette?" He presses the point of the gun to her head, a wicked looking smirk on his lips.

"Go to hell," she snarls.

He laughs and pulls the trigger and she flinches, her eyes closing tight, her body tensing for the pain. The shot is empty.

"Lucky you," he laughs.

He extends his arm, aims again, and cocks the gun.

"Let's see if your luck runs twice."

His finger is on the trigger, slowly squeezing it, and she feels sweat beads on her forehead. With her super hearing, she can hear the sound of friction between his skin and the metal, and the anticipation is even more excruciating than the actual pain. She clenches her eyes tightly shut and braces herself once more. Again, the pain doesn't come. But the gun had not been fired.

Interrupting her torturer's little game is the incessant sound of knocking.

"Is that Bill? Is he back?"

The older werewolf stands up and reaches for the shotgun he laid against the wall beside him.

"That ain't Bill."

"Then who-"

The half-formed question is answered by a loud bang and a crash of wood as the large, heavy wooden door to the cabin comes bursting apart. Splinters and larger sharp bits of wood shower them. The room becomes a cacophony of confusion and turmoil.

"What the hell?"

Caroline had closed her eyes to shield them from the debris caused by the demolition of the cabin's door. She cautiously opens them again when she recognizes the voice whispering into her ear.

"It's okay, Caroline. We're getting you out of here."

She blinks back tears as Stefan Salvatore's face comes into focus.

"I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

Words that echo the ones in her memories.

She should be confused and unsettled because he wasn't the one she was expecting. The last person she was expecting, actually. And furthermore, she should be upset with him. The last time she had laid eyes on Stefan Salvatore, he had plunged his hand into Elijah's chest, ruining all of her best laid plans. He had betrayed them, turned his back on her and all of their friends. And yet here he was looking so very much like the old Stefan, the good Stefan. The one that was her friend, her mentor. The boy that she harbored a crush on back in junior year. But in spite of all her unanswered questions, relief floods her at the sight of him.

"Stefan," she whispers.

Stefan strokes her cheeks, wiping away the blood and the grime with his sleeve. The moment lasts only a few precious seconds, but time slows for her and she lets herself give in to the kind gesture.

He manages to pry one of her restraints apart and then goes to free the other. Freedom was so close that she could almost taste it. And then a shotgun fires, the sound reverberating in her very bones. Its wooden bullets hit Stefan squarely in the chest, knocking him to the ground where he doesn't get up. Blood seeps into his clothes from the wounds like water from a spring and she screams.

xxx

Katherine, true to her word, takes them to the stone cabin in the woods once the sun went down. They pause about twenty yards away from the cabin to scan the werewolves on sentry duty.

"Looks like there's about three of them..." Stefan declares after studying the surroundings.

"Good, one for each of us," Damon replies.

"It's not a brawl, Damon. It's a rescue mission. Freeing Caroline is our number one goal."

"Yes," Klaus agrees. "Besides, I can easily take out all of these mutts myself in the time it takes you to form a witty remark."

"You think I'm witty?" Damon smirks.

Stefan sighs and Katherine rolls her eyes.

"If you boys are done flirting," she drawls. "I believe there's a cheerleader to save."

They finally all agreed that Stefan shall retrieve Caroline and take her into safety while Klaus and Damon take care of the pesky werewolves. He's hesitant to trust her rescue to the younger vampire, but he tells himself he'd rather rip apart the werewolves anyways than play knight in shining armor.

Just as he's about to slink off into the darkness with the Salvatores, Katherine surprises him by placing a hand on his arm.

"Be careful, Klaus... you might get your heart ripped out in there."

Klaus arches a brow at her, not for one second believing what Katherine said was said out of kindness or concern for his well-being. Nevertheless, he answers her with his usual confidence. "The werewolves won't be able to touch me."

"I wasn't talking about the werewolves," Katherine replies enigmatically. A sly smile curves her lips for a brief moment before she turns her back on him. She didn't owe him a clearer answer. She had done her part and now she was going to disappear off the face of the earth.

Klaus had shrugged off her annoyingly abstruse words as more of Katherine's mind games.  
Yet when he finds himself at the entrance of the cabin watching Stefan Salvatore wipe the dirt and blood from Caroline's cheeks, it is her words that haunt him.

It did not matter the chaos that surrounded them at that moment. Not from the look they shared with one another. From his bond with Caroline, he could feel her emotions: a mixture of hope and a feeling that he can only describe as akin to how kindling begins to take flame. It's a warmth that begins in the pit of your stomach, but has yet to spread.

He feels Stefan's hand on her cheek as if it were on his own. Feels her lower the lids of her eyes and lean against the caress. He felt like a voyeur, an interloper that had walked in on something intimate between the youngest Salvatore and the baby vampire.

It was a strange and soothing contrast to all the pain and suffering she had been through. And somehow, instead of feeling relieved that he would no longer suffer by second-hand, he felt the most unbearable clenching in his chest. Irritably and irrationally so.

"Be careful, Klaus... you might get your heart ripped out in there."

But how can that be when he had no heart?

The answer to the question skirted at the edges of his mind, but before he can fully come into epiphany, the moment is lost. Chaos once again ensues.

If the gunshot was not loud enough to startle everyone into action, Caroline's scream sure is.

xxx

Blood seeps from the wounds in Stefan's chest, and for a moment, Caroline is terrified that one of the wooden bullets had found its mark. She attempts to yank her other arm free from the chains, but stops when the same shotgun barrel that fired the shot that took down Stefan is shoved into her face, the metal pressing none too gently against her left cheek.

"Don't even think about it, you bloodsucking whore."

She freezes then, doesn't even dare cast her eyes in the direction of the speaker. She knew from his voice that it was the older werewolf. The one that took torturing to a whole new level of art.

"And you back up too, you monstrous freak."

The gun moves momentarily to point to whoever her torturer is speaking to. She dares to move then and then when she sees him. Klaus.

He's wearing the clothes she had seen him wear in the dream. But that gentleness that he had shown her then was nonexistent now. His face showed all of his rage, his mouth curled in a snarl. But he's not looking at her, seems to be purposely not looking at her. His angry glare is purely reserved for the man with the shotgun.

"If you prefer a quick and painless death, old man, then I'd suggest you step away from the lady," his tone is steady, polite almost. "Otherwise I can promise you that it won't be pleasant and it won't be fast."

The weathered faced man merely smiles, points the gun to Caroline's leg again, and pulls the trigger.

She bites down on her lower lip, muffling her screams, but he can feel the agony ripping through her, ripping through him. He flinches from the pain, but doesn't allow himself to fall to his knee. Not in front of this pathetic, inferior mongrel. If he was angry before, now he was downright livid.

"You shoot her again and I'll-"

The man chuckles; it's a cruel and hollow sound. And without turning, Klaus can hear footsteps behind him. From the corner of his eyes, he sees Damon Salvatore get marched in, his hands held behind his back and flanked by a pair of rough looking individuals. The distinct scent of wet dog permeates the air and the howls of a pack echo in his ear. Reinforcements. There had been more than just three werewolves on watch. They were outnumbered.

From the smug grin on his face, the werewolf knows that Klaus has finally come to the right conclusion. He cocks his gun once more and points it to Caroline.

"Or you'll do what, Hybrid? I say it'll be poetic justice to kill you both together. But maybe I'll let you watch me skin her first."

Within seconds, Klaus is in front of him. His hand shoves up and under the man's rib cage, his fingers closing around his spleen. He was so fast, so impossibly fast that no one even saw him move.

"Do you feel that?" Klaus whispers into the whimpering man's ear. "That's my fingers digging into your spleen. A useless organ, really. But humans are so slow to evolve," he says with a sigh.

The man whimpers.

"I think I should help you by getting rid of it."

And without another word, Klaus calmly rips the organ straight out of the man's body and drops it to the floor with a sickening splat next to its owner. He had been deliberately cruel. The man won't die from the loss of his organ, but he would from bleeding out. A much slower death than had Klaus chosen to rip out his heart instead.

He doesn't miss Damon's rather impressed expression out of the corner of his eye. He brings his fingers to his lips and licks them clean. The other members of the pack are frozen in pure shock.

"So, who else needs help in furthering along the evolutionary process?" he says casually.

All hell breaks loose.

xxx

It's amazing how that small stone cabin could hold so many people. Limbs and bodies mashed together, collided and thrashed. Damon manages to break free during the struggle and takes down at least two of the werewolves within the first five minutes before fighting his way towards Stefan, who was slowly regaining his consciousness, and Caroline.

Klaus briefly observes in his peripheral vision the eldest Salvatore helping his brother to his feet before both joined the fray. He wants to curse at them for being stupid and not helping Caroline, but is soon preoccupied with a werewolf, surprisingly in its wolf form, trying to tear his throat out.

It's a pity, he thinks. In another life, the wolves could've been his comrades. He had all but spent the entirety of the summer trying to find them. They are a rare bunch, the werewolf gene being so recessive. But now, nothing satisfied him more than ripping them limb from limb.

He had promised Caroline a rain of blood and so he will deliver. Let it not be said that he was not a man of his word.

Still, the wolves possess incredible strength, more than he had expected, and they came at him in hordes. They seem to have the ability to change into their canine forms despite the lack of a full moon. An anomaly that he doesn't have time to ponder.

He hears a growl from one of them, still in its human form, even as he wrestles with another. It charges him from behind, but he's still preoccupied with the one that currently had its teeth lodged into his shoulder. With all his strength, he pries the jaws apart, cracking the bones and ripping the tendons that kept them together, and shoves the animal hard against the wall. He spins around, anticipating a stake to go through his side from its companion. He had only time to turn enough to protect his heart from being a clear target and so he prepares himself for the pain when it slices through his flesh. But it never comes.

The werewolf stops abruptly three inches away from him and then suddenly falls into a muddled heap. Its spine had been torn from its body.

Instead of being attached to its owner, it was in the hands of the young vampire cheerleader who had caused his all this trouble to begin with. In the chaos of the all out melee, she has somehow gotten out of her restraints.

She held the spine between her bloody fingers like some sort of macabre trophy.

She looks like hell. Her usually radiant blonde hair is a tangled mess, her clothes were dirty and ripped, and lesions marked her usually flawless skin though he can see them rapidly healing even as he stares.

Their eyes meet for a brief moment and he sees the fire blazing in them. Something terrible and dark, and he feels his hair stand on its end. And then her eyes shut and she drops the werewolf's spine to the floor with a cringe-inducing crack.

He catches her before her knees hit the ground.

He doesn't bother checking on the Salvatores. He immediately sweeps her into his arms and without a word, he takes off. Most of the werewolves were dead or dying. He'll leave it to the Salvatore brothers to deal with the clean up. She's the one that matters.

He doesn't realize that Stefan was watching him go.

xxx

He carries her into the bathroom. She had regained consciousness as he made his way across the front lawn. Despite his prediction, she doesn't scream or cry. Nor does she beat against his chest demanding that he put her down like he had thought she would.

Given that he feels everything she feels, he has to give her credit. The pain from the wood shrapnel and the doses of vervain amongst all the other various tortures she had received should be enough for even the strongest vampire to scream, cry, and break down. But she just buries her face into his shoulder and grips his neck in a steel vise.

"You need to clean yourself up," he tells her as he sets her down in the middle of the shower.

She doesn't answer him. Doesn't say a single word. Doesn't even look at him.

Impatient, he turns on the shower faucet and she gasps when the water hits her skin, washing away the blood and dirt. He ignores how soaked he's getting and proceeds to remove the rather large shard of wood buried on the left side of her neck. She whimpers when he pulls it out, but doesn't object.

She lets him inspect her without a hesitation and with only minimal fussing when he moves to take off her shirt, not that there was much of a shirt left. But his gestures are methodical and purposeful, so she lets him.

He runs his hand over her cut and bruised skin. He watches to make sure the wounds heal when he removes the projectiles that have embedded themselves into her skin, wincing occasionally when he feels the pain himself.

"That should be the last of it," he announces when he pulls the final wooden bullet out from under her collar bone. She had gritted her teeth until her mouth bled from that one, and he could see her eyes watering from the pain. He's feeling sore himself.

"Thatone had been incredibly close..." he says as he holds up the bloody bullet for her to examine. "You're lucky that those hunters had incredibly bad aim."

She doubted that it was from bad aim. They probably enjoyed missing the vitals.

"Thank you," she whispers, her voice is hoarse and it comes out raspy.

He can't really tell if it's just water from the shower head raining down on their heads or tears running down her cheeks. When a sob escapes her lips, his doubts are erased.

His chest clenches in an unfamiliar way, and he wonders why she's so idiotic to be crying now that the worst was already over.

"He wanted to kill me," she sobs, unable to keep the tears at bay any longer now that she's opened up the dam. "My own father hates me."

Her words strike him in an excruciatingly familiar way, but he buries the pain, just like he's done with everything else. He could teach her a thing or two about disappointing fathers.

But just as he's ready to discredit her, she wipes away the tears, closes her eyes for a moment, and lets out a breath she's been holding. Her face is composed when she opens her eyes.

She was a continual fascination, a contradictory package of bravery and fragility wrapped up in a tiny blonde girl. The spell that links them should have provided him with more answers, but he continues to be mystified by her. Her actions seldom make logical sense and her feelings even less so.

"I'm fine now," she tells him, her voice firm.

She doesn't have to tell him. He can feel it himself. The wounds were healing, but he's pretty sure she's referring to her emotional status rather than her physical one.

He doesn't know why she's trying to reassure him. He doesn't care. She was just a liability to him. A byproduct of a stupid spell. He just needed her alive. That was all.

It was unnerving how many times he's had to remind himself of that fact lately.

"I'm not your savior," he replies coldly.

She's not fazed by his chilly response. She just nods and accepts it. And suddenly, his temper was flaring. The feeling is alarming and he tries reining it in so she wouldn't notice.

"You're angry?"

Apparently, he wasn't able to hide as well as he had hoped.

She nods silently as if answering her own question. "You're angry," she repeats, not a question this time.

"Of course I am!" He barks. "You almost got killed."

She swallows hard, looking very much scolded.

"I know I got you involved, because of our bond, I'm sorry-"

His temper flares again.

"That's not what I said," he growls through gritted teeth.

They were fire and ice, she and he. Never on the same page. He doesn't know if it was just their nature or she was just being contentiously oblivious on purpose. Why is it that despite their bond, despite all the spells and magic, she doesn't seem to understand him at all? And then he realizes it's probably because he didn't understand himself until now.

"Be careful, Klaus... you might get your heart ripped out in there."

The epiphany that eluded him before hits him then. Shewas his heart. She embodies all those feelings he has buried so deeply inside. The ones he thought were dead. She has rekindled them, made his pulse beat once more and for the first time in centuries he feels like a man again and not just a monster. But he's been a monster for so long, he's not sure he'd be any good as a man.

She blinks at him, confused. She looks just about like how he feels. Why does he even care if she understands or not?

"Do I have to spell it out for you?"

Except he needsher to understand. Desperately so.

She opens and closes her mouth several times, unable to properly string together words into any comprehensible sequence.

"Were you…" she pauses, unsure of how to finish her sentence and turning shy. "You were worried about me?" she says finally.

There's a slight smile to her lips and somehow it makes his chest clench again and he hates it.

This silly little blonde vampire has gotten under his skin. She has infuriated him, annoyed him, tortured him endlessly with her myriad of teen girl dramatics. Her practically vegan diet, the annoying company that she keeps, and the endless string of pointless social functions that she's unceremoniously imposed upon him. But her most offensive and unforgivable act was making him care.

"No, I was worried about the pack of mongrels that were ready to riddle you with wooden bullets in attempts to kill you," he answers tersely. "Seeing the number of wooden shards I had to pry out from under your skin, I'd say they were nearly successful. The act of first aid was a delightful ritual for myself might I add."

She's weaseled her way into his life, made him feel things he's locked away, and for good reason. And then she has the nerve to almost get herself killed and take him down with her. Completely unforgivable.

"You're getting soaked," she murmurs sheepishly.

She reaches a hand to brush back a wet lock of hair only to pull back her hand shyly.

And there it was again, that odd clenching feeling in his chest.

She begins to shiver and he instinctively reaches out to her. Their eyes meet in a brief moment. And before he knew what he was doing, he had brought his hand up to her face, rubbing away the droplets of water from her cheek with his thumbs before crashing his lips into hers.

She gasps and closes her eyes, but this time it's not from pain. She raises her arms and he thinks it is to push him away. But instead she wraps them around his neck to pull him closer, her lips demanding dominance over his. He can feel a fire burning in the pit of his stomach.

Her lips yield under his, her body against his body, her hands entangling in his hair. She tastes slightly salty from her tears.

His kisses are like poison, his kisses are like wine.* She can't get enough. Even if her head is screaming at her to stop, she can't.

In her darkest moments, in the eye of the storm of terror and agonizing pain, it was him that kept her anchored. It was his promise to save her that kept her from succumbing into madness. How strange that only a month ago she had to be rescued fromhim and now he was the one doing the saving. He says he's not her savior and he is by far no hero riding on a white horse, but she's grateful all the same. And maybe she is a naïve girl for confusing gratitude for something more, but right now his lips are warm and his arms are strong as they wrapped around her and she likes the way he tastes.

She runs her hands through his wet hair before traveling down his chest, her gestures growing bolder and rough in their eagerness.

Their wet clothes cling heavily to their bodies and the cold water continues to drum on their backs, spilling over the tiles. But neither of them cares very much. Their bodies are warmth enough.

Her hands fumble with the button on his wet shirt, her fingers slick from the water. When she finally manages to peel it off, he lets it drop heavily to the floor where it joins her previously discarded shirt.

His hand runs over the fabric of her bra. The material was once satiny and smooth to touch, but the torture had all but ruined it. He didn't give it a second thought when he snapped the clasp. He reckons it wasn't salvageable anyways.

His arms wrap themselves around her waist, pulling her even closer. He bends his head to kiss the underside of her jaw, working his way down her throat. He pauses at a spot where a wooden bullet had grazed her shoulder, places a soft kiss against the now smooth skin.

The reality beats the dream. Every pleasure is doubled. He can feel everything she feels. Every hitch of her breath is his own. Every moan of pleasure, every titillating kiss is magnified. He doesn't know anymore where he ends and she begins. Their hearts beat in unison, he feels it reverberating under their skin, in their souls. That is, if monsters like them have souls.

He spins her around and presses her against the wall. She lets out a gasp, but doesn't struggle against him. His hands brace against the slick tiles of the wall, trying to find support as he thrusts into her from behind. The rhythm is exquisitely slow and she feels herself impatient with his teasing. She grinds her hips backwards against his and it earns a groan from him. He growls, burying his face into her neck, teeth grazing the smooth skin. But he gets the message and increases his speed.

He doesn't know if the water from the shower was finally turning hot or it was just the heat of their bodies, but he doesn't really care. All he knows is that she fit perfectly against him and every moan from her lips, every gasp of breath edges him on more.

He feels them both simultaneously reaching their climax and in the last moment, she arches her body against his, pushing him even deeper. It is enough to send them both toppling over the edge, and if it were not for his arm that had wrapped itself around her waist for balance, she surely would've collapsed.

They stand there panting for a moment. For a vampire, she feels out of breath. She turns slowly in his embrace to press a kiss to his lips.

"Is this a dream?" she whispers against his lips.

He's silent, and the echoes of the droplets of water ricocheting off the slick tiles are her only reply.

He breaks their kiss and covers her hands with his. She opens her eyes to meet his sea green ones.

"This is not a dream," he answers.

For the briefest of moments, they stand there, under the downpour of the shower head. Conflicting emotions rise in her then and he wonders if she had allowed herself to give in to him only under the illusion of a dream. That under her state of duress, she had been confused and sought comfort in this escape. The thought brings yet another violent pang in his chest.

He realizes then that he's still holding her hand and that he should let go. But when he does, she reaches out and pulls his face back towards her for another deep kiss.

"I didn't want this to be a dream," she whispers.

xxx

In an underground Chicago bar, Bonnie clasps her hands over her mouth and murmurs a silent prayer, something she hasn't done since she was five, before her mom had left. But the scene before her was so gruesome she had fallen back on old habits. She might no longer believe in miracles, but she felt she would need the strength of angels for this mess she's walked into.

The first thing that should've tipped them off was the distinct, sharp metallic scent in the air.

"Oh my god. Is that even human anymore?"

Elijah's face, which did not usually betray any uncontrolled emotion, twisted in a grimace.

"I believe that was our witch."

Before them is what looks to be a mangled body, so twisted and mutilated it was beyond recognition, laid in the middle of a spelled circle drawn in blood. The walls were painted with it. And on the ceiling are the words Veni, Sancte Spiritus, Lava quod est sordidum.**

Bonnie mouths the words and frowns.

"I don't understand. That isn't a spell."

Bonnie turns to Elijah then, puzzlement replacing her disgust.

"That's because it's not."

Elijah's face changes from its usual calm then, changes to something dark, troubled, and dare Bonnie say it... afraid. And if Elijah, immovable, perpetually unfazed Elijah, was afraid then she should be downright terrified.

"It's lines from the Golden Sequence, albeit abridged. To translate, it says, 'Come, Holy Spirit, Cleanse that which is unclean.'"

"I still don't understand... what does that mean?"

Elijah tears his eyes away from the macabre scene before them and turns to Bonnie.

"It means that there's a greater villain afoot than Klaus."

"Who?"

"Our father."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Poison and Wine by the Civil Wars is the ultimate klaroline song, y/y? YES.  
> ** You can find the full translations and text via wikipedia: .org/wiki/Veni_Sancte_Spiritus


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is soooo belated and I’m so sorry for the wait guys! RL has been hectic and I’ve been a real procrastinator. Hopefully, this chapter will make up for it. I made it extra-long and hopefully it will tide you guys over until I get my head outta my butt and start updating more regularly. Please note that this chapter is unbeta’d because I wanted to pub it quickly since you all have been waiting for an update for so long. I will eventually go back and edit it better but there WILL be mistakes! I’m trying to focus on getting more of the story out than I am with editing at this point because there’s sooo many great upcoming scenes I want to share with you guys and lots of interesting plot twists coming up that I’m excited about! Anyways, thank you for all your support and I hope you enjoy. =)

 

  
When Caroline was a little girl, she used to occupy her time climbing trees and doing cartwheels in the grass. Her clothes were covered with more mud and grass stains than it was with sequins or lace. It was a more carefree time and she longs for it. Perhaps that’s why the dream came to her the way it did.  
  
Behind her eyelids she is eight years old again. A conscious part of her recognizes the grass underneath her bare feet as the ones belonging to the park that was the setting of her birthday, a picnic near the lake. She remembers running up and down the little hills besides the lake until she had no breath left to run and so she did.  
  
As she ran she knew that someone was playfully chasing her. It was all part of the game. The first person to reach the top of the hill without being caught would be crowned King, or rather Queen, of the hill. It was her favorite game to play and she plays it well.  
  
Her chest puffs as she runs. The ground is soft and slightly damp from dew, but she doesn’t care. All she knows is that she needs to get to the top of that hill.  
  
Childhood games, childhood thoughts, and endless expanses of grass to run upon. Such bliss seldom comes by anymore. Her feet barely touch the ground, as if wings had grown on them, and her heart pounds with the excitement.  
  
“I’m going to get you!” her pursuer teases.  
  
She finds herself squealing “No!” before succumbing to peals of laughter making her gasp audibly for breath. But she never stops running. It’s a sort of breathlessness that thrills her.  
  
She knew it was all play and pretend and she feels safe in that young, innocent, blissfully ignorant way that children often do.  
  
But as all things come to an end, she finally reaches the top. Twirling on her heels she turns to face her pursuer triumphantly only to find that the sky that had been blue in her memories has darkened.  
  
Suddenly panic replaces her elation and she begins to shiver as the cold tendrils wrap their fingers around her chest.  
  
The clouds above her churns and the rays of sunshine that had peeked out of the clouds’ shadows burn her where they once warmed her skin. She jerks back in pain, staring at the burn mark on her hand, heart pounding.  
  
She’s not eight years old anymore and playtime is over. This is no longer pretend and fear is all too real.  
  
She gazes down, across the field to the figure that has been chasing her. She cannot make out the face that looks back, the features too blurry and distorted to discern. But though she could not make out the features, she knew to be terrified.  
  
“I’m going to get you,” he seems to mouth. The same words that had been spoken in jest now sound menacing.  
  
She screams, but this time no laughter follows. Her heart hammers in her chest as she stumbles backwards. The grass that she had been running on had changed into cold, sticky mud. Oily and gritty between her fingers, clinging to her like sludge. It’s heavy and she feels as if she’s slowly sinking into it. She tries screaming again, but finds that she has no voice.  
  
She blinks once and the mud replaced by cold, biting steel. She lifts her hands up only to find them suddenly manacled and chained. She whips her head about violently and recognizes the dirty, bloodstained walls of the cabin in the woods. Dismembered bodies lay littered at her feet and something makes crackling noises in the darkness.  
  
The air in the room feels as if it’s been vacuumed out, she cannot breathe. Panic sets in and the sound of heavy footsteps makes her jump.  
  
The blurred figure approaches her once again, walking slowly forth from the darkness like a phantom from one of those horror movies that she had repressed from her human memories.  
  
She can feel sweat dripping down the sides of her forehead. He plays with a wickedly sharp and slender wooden stake in his hands, tossing it from one hand to the other.  
  
“No, no, no!” Her voice comes out like a croak.  
  
Finally the figure emerges from the veil of shadows and she can make out the tell-tale gold horn-rimmed glasses. She recalls picking them out so many years ago in the optometry office two blocks away from the Grill. It’s such an oddly ordinary object, but all of its implications seize her with trepidation.  
  
Her eyes sting and she feels wetness on her cheek. She realizes belatedly that she’s crying.  
  
“No, no! Daddy! Please! Don’t!”  
  
Her voice sounds pathetic even to her own ears. More sobs than words.  
  
Despite all of her pleading, the man who resembles her father merely shakes his head solemnly. Shadows mark his face. It twists the familiar features of her father into that of a stranger.  
  
“You’re a monster, sweetheart.”  
  
His expression is almost sympathetic which makes it all that much worse. A gasp gets caught in her throat when he raises his arm, stake in hand. She watches in slow motion as the sharp point plunges towards her chest.  
  
And then she screams.  
  
xxx  
  
Caroline jerks awake still screaming, the dream muddled memory still vibrantly vivid in her mind. Clinging to her like spider web, too fine and strong to shake. Her screams soon turn into a painful, hysterical sobbing, tears spilling forth like a broken faucet. Her throat is raw, her whole body is wracked uncontrollable shaking. She’s crying so much she can’t even breathe and that only adds to the panic.  
  
In the midst of the terror she realizes that somebody is stroking her hair, pulling it out of her face. Whispering shushing noises into her ear and wiping her tears, salty and hot, from her cheeks.  
  
 _“Shhh, it’s okay, love.”_  
  
The familiar moniker pulls her back into lucidness, like an anchor grounding her.   
  
_“Shhh, it’s okay.”_  
  
Warm breath warms her ear. The voice has a strong English accent and she manages to blink back enough tears to take in her surroundings. A white dresser, a closet overflowing with clothes, a cheer uniform lay strewn across the back of a chair. She is in her room. It is with this realization that she comes to another. There are strong arms wrapped around her waist, rocking her softly, she’s in her bed, and she completely _naked_.  
  
xxx  
  
Klaus had been merciless in extracting revenge on Caroline’s behalf and the carnage he left behind takes Stefan and Damon at least an hour to clean up. If the woods in Mystic Falls weren’t already haunted, they would be now with over a dozen werewolf spirits.  
  
Bodies buried and evidence burned, the Salvatore brothers trudge their way home in a tense, awkward silence.  
  
Stefan had not expected fanfare and confetti for his homecoming, but he was finding that it was turning out much more difficult than he originally anticipated. He’s coming back disgraced after all, having abandoned Elena and his brother and his home to indulge in his blood addiction. Klaus may have forced his hand, but it did not take away the pleasure that he so adamantly denies free blood from the vein had brought him. It’s a high achieved by nothing else. In that alone, he has betrayed Elena and all the good she has held him up to.  
  
But instead of thoughts of repentance and Elena, he finds himself replaying the last couple of hours in a mental theater of his own. Images of Caroline, battered and bruised, the wolves, all teeth and claws, and the blood and gore race through his mind like a slideshow. And then he recalls Caroline’s hands, bloody with the marrow of the werewolf whose spine she had ripped out. He recalls Klaus’s startled expression and his own shock. He remembers the way Caroline’s eyes had looked so fierce, how they had burned with intensity. And then he remembered how the fire had gone out of those eyes and how she had fallen to the floor. He had wanted to go to her then, but Klaus was faster. The older vampire had wasted no time reaching her side, sweeping her into his arms, and taking off. Stefan can only assume that they’ve returned back to Caroline’s home. Something about that thought makes him uneasy.  
  
“I love Elena.”  
  
Damon’s confession startles Stefan out of his thoughts and he turns to his brother, blinking. Damon is staring at the front door of the Salvatore mansion, his eyes purposely averted away from Stefan. Stefan doesn’t even know how they had reached the mansion so quickly. He felt as if mere moments ago they were still trekking through the woods.  
  
“What?” Stefan’s voice sounds dreamy and hoarse.  
  
“I love her,” Damon repeats, turning to face him this time. There’s a fire smoldering in his brother’s blue eyes. It’s how they look when he’s planning on being stubborn and difficult.  
  
“Yeah, I know. I-” Stefan had been about to say _I love her, too._ But somehow, the words didn’t feel like they had the same conviction as Damon’s does. At that moment, he didn’t feel worthy to say that he loved Elena. So he merely echoes himself. “I know you do.”  
  
Another moment of silence pass between them before Damon puts his hand on the doorknob, turns it and pushes the door open.   
  
Elena is asleep on the couch on the other side; her brows are furrowed like she’s having a bad dream. Damon steps aside so that Stefan can walk past him to her.  
  
Stefan kneels down on the floor besides her and places a hand against her cheek. The movement wakes her and her eyelids slowly flutter open. She opens her mouth as if to say a name, but upon blinking the sleep from her eyes and letting his face come into focus she seems to have had changed her mind. She sits up abruptly and he doesn’t miss the quick glance she throws over his shoulder, where Damon stands stiffly behind him with his arms crossed.  
  
“You guys are back,” she says, her voice laden with sleep. She coughs, trying to clear her throat. “Where’s Caroline?”  
  
“Home,” he tells her.  
  
She nods.  
  
“Is she alright?”  
  
“As alright as any girl who has been tortured for the past twenty-four hours by her father and a band of sadistic werewolves can be, I suppose,” Damon remarks snidely. “But don’t worry. Klaus whisked her out of there pretty quick. She should be fine now.”  
  
“You let _Klaus_ take her?” Elena asks incredulously.  
  
“You forget that they’re bonded. He’s the one that wanted her back the most. She’s safest with him.”  
  
Something about Damon stating the obvious makes Stefan’s stomach knot. _Caroline is safest with Klaus_. It seems such an absurd notion, yet when Damon said it aloud the truth rang in his words. Still, Stefan can’t seem to bring himself to accept it. Elena, on the other hand, merely nods resignedly.  
  
“Now that Vampire Barbie is safe and sound... how about you fill us in on what you’ve been up to, _brother_. Unabridged.”  
  
Damon is back to being hostile and suspicious, as he should, but something rancid has filled Stefan’s stomach and he has no patience for questioning.  
  
“I’ve been over this,” Stefan replies to his brother.  
  
“Yes, but that was with Klaus. I was hoping you could afford to better explain to your brother and your _girlfriend_ why you-”  
  
“After everything with Klaus, why didn’t you come home?” Elena says suddenly. She doesn’t say anything else, but from the look in her eyes Stefan felt as if she was silently asking, ‘Why didn’t you come back to _me_?’.  
  
Damon has gone silent and Stefan squirms under Elena’s scrutiny.  
  
He shrugs lamely. “I thought Katherine had a plan to save Caroline. It was stupid to trust her, but I couldn’t leave Caroline behind. I had to save her.”  
  
“And Caroline originally left to go save _you_. And so on and so forth. It’s all very ‘Gift of the Magi’,” Damon says with a drawl.  
  
“You could’ve come back. You _should’ve_ come back. We could have figured it out together!” Elena snaps, paying no attention to Damon’s snide remarks. A sudden fury has overtaken her. Her eyes were brimming with angry tears and her hands were fists at her side. “And now everything is a mess. Caroline could have died, _you_ could’ve died. And it would’ve been all my-”  
  
“Stop it, Elena.” Stefan’s voice was soft, but firm. “It wasn’t your fault.”  
  
Despite his tone, Elena looks like he had slapped her. Her lips quiver and her hands ball up into fists in her lap.  
  
“But isn’t it? I hate that you don’t let me be responsible. You can’t absolve everything that has happened because of me.”

 

 

 

Her voice tremors with repressed anger.  
  
“Everyone I love is always in some sort of danger because _I’m_ the doppelganger. But what use is being the doppelganger? I can’t do anything. I’m just... _here_ ,” she violently gestures with her hands.   
  
“Do you know what I’ve been doing while the both of you were trying to rescue Caroline? I made phone calls and text messages. Leaving unanswered voicemails to Bonnie because if Bonnie was here, _she_ would be able to do something. Help somehow. Not just sit here like some porcelain doll, twiddling her thumbs and waiting for you two to come back.”  
  
The words spill forth, bubbling with rage from deep down inside her like a latent volcano preparing to erupt. She had hated waiting like some damsel in distress waiting for rescue, completely lacking any agency of her own. It tore at her, knotting up her insides.  
  
“Do you know what I realized while I waited for you two? I realized that I’m _useless_ , Stefan. And yet everyone is so preoccupied with saving me, protecting me-” she pauses to swallow a sob she had not even realized had risen up in her throat.  
  
She can feel her cheeks burning with shame as hot tears make their way down her cheeks. Stefan casts her a pitying look and that only makes her feel worse. He reaches out a hand to touch her, but she turns away so that her back was partially facing him. She doesn’t want his comfort right now. She was not in the mood to be treated as if she was a pretty ornament made of glass. But the resentment towards Stefan quickly turns to guilt because while she waited, she had come to a shocking revelation about their relationship. She had given up.   
  
She did not miss him as much as she should have when he was gone. She had thought their love was everlasting, _epic_. She recalls the first time they met and she had penciled that word into the pages of her diary. She remembers how she had felt that day. As if it was the beginning of something that was supposed to last forever. But she’s just an eighteen year old girl. What the hell did she know about love everlasting?  
  
While he was gone, Damon had slowly crept up on her and she had let him fill the lonely void that Stefan had left. And she had been okay with that. It beats the loneliness that was a black hole inside. She had lost too many people already and she was tired of missing ghosts. But Damon was no ghost. He was there and he made her laugh again. When he was with her she could feel the earth spinning on its axis and she could tell herself that everything would be turn out okay. That maybe even if Stefan never came back, things would still work out and life would go on.  
  
But then Stefan did come home. And when she saw him again, she had felt ashamed for wanting to move on.  
  
What happened to their epic love? She didn’t fight for him. It was _Caroline_ who had taken matters into her own hands to bring back Stefan. Caroline, whocared enough for Stefan to go after him when she, his girlfriend, did nothing.

 

 

 

She would not admit it, but that was part of the reason why she had pushed Caroline away. Caroline had made her feel guilty. And when Caroline was taken, so quickly after their fight, she knew she was responsible. She was the one that pushed her friend away. And why? Because she was petty, naive, _jealous_.  
  
She didn’t fight for Caroline like she should have. Just like she didn’t fight for Stefan. She had given up too quickly, too self-absorbed to overlook her own insecurities. But the realization of her selfishness only fueled the insecurities all the more.  
  
Guilt and shame nags at her, consuming her thoughts. She couldn’t seem to escape them. Especially so when they were all she had for company as she waited  in that big Salvatore house while everyone else was fighting for their lives.  
  
Elena wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. Her body feels like lead and her head is stuffed full with cotton.  
  
“I’m tired. I’m going home,” she announces.  
  
Damon unfolds his arms and makes a motion towards her, a worried expression on his face. “Let me take you.”  
  
“No,” her answer is sharp, a reprimand, and he flinches.  
  
She shouldn’t be taking her anger out on him and immediately feels bad about it when she sees his face. He looks hurt. Resigned, almost. As if he’s already putting himself back in Stefan’s shadow now that the prodigal younger sibling has returned.  
  
“It’s not far,” she amends, softly. “I can walk. I need some time alone.”  
  
Both brothers nod and she bends to grab her purse from where it lay strewn on couch. A little white bottle peaks out of the side, but she shoves it in and zips close the opening.  
  
“I’m glad Caroline is okay,” she says, trying for a smile. It doesn’t reach her eyes and she turns away from the two brothers that she’s come to love.  
  
Their gazes follow her as she opens and shuts the door behind her.  
  
xxx  
  
Klaus must have stroked Caroline’s hair, murmuring soothing sounds, for at least half an hour before she even noticed him.  
  
In her slumber she had let her guard down and the dark thoughts invaded. He felt her terror, felt his heart beating pounding in unison to hers as the nightmare overtook her. She had been too deep in their clutches for him to dispel them. Vampire or not, she was still just a seventeen year old girl and he couldn’t help but feel protective over this furiously fragile thing.  
  
Eventually her sobs dies down. Save for a few hiccups, she seems to have gathered her wits about her. Her eyes flit back and forth as she registers their surroundings, registers _him_.  
  
“Are you alright?” he inquires. His arms are still protectively wrapped around her waist.  
  
She doesn’t say anything for a moment, her face taking on a perplexed expression. She can feel the tangled sheets around her legs, his hard chest pressed against her back, his arms steady around her waist.  
  
“I’m _naked_.”  
  
Something about the incredulity of her statement, as she wipes the tell-tale tear stains from her cheeks, makes him laugh.  
  
She turns in his embrace and scowls at him, effectively silencing him.  
  
“Yes, _very_ naked,” he says in a stern voice. The mischievous glint in his eyes belies his serious tone.  
  
She glances at the room and notices the wet footprints on the carpet and then back at him.  
  
“And...so are you,” she points out.   
  
Something warm fills his belly with her statement and a grin breaks out on his face.   
  
“Yes,” he says. “I am.”  
  
The boyish look on her face is enough to make her smile back and suddenly the terror of her slumber seem to dissipate, like air vapors in heat. Just a nightmare, she thinks. Nothing more. The details of it already becoming blurry in her waking consciousness. She feels whole again, solid.  
  
“We should get some blood into you,” he remarks.  
  
“We should get some clothes on,” she shoots back.  
  
Another grin. “Not necessarily. I’m enjoying the view,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss right at the crook of her bare shoulder and sending tingles up and down her spine.  
  
Her eyes widen with the sensation. She opens her mouth to protest when the doorbell rings loudly, interrupting her.  
  
“I should get that.”  
  
“Let it be, they’ll go away.”  
  
As if in retort the doorbell rings again with an almost perceptible impatient tone.  
  
“I should get that,” Caroline repeats, rolling her eyes.  
  
He lets out a low groan as she untangled herself from his embrace, slides off the bed, and heads towards her closet where she pulls a bathrobe off a hanger.  
  
Once properly wrapped up she looks up at him, her expression serious.  
  
“We should talk... after.”  
  
He merely looks at her in silence for a moment before inclining his head in a nod. “Make whoever it is at the door go away quickly.”  
  
She graces him with a small smile before sauntering away.  
  
He collapses back into bed, burying his face into her pillows, inhaling her scent. The smell invokes an unexpected and powerful longing. She’s been barely gone for five minutes and he’s not quite sure what has gotten into him.  
  
xxx  
  
Caroline quickly makes her way down the stairs, trying to shake the burning memory of Klaus, _naked_ Klaus, naked Klaus running his hands all ove-- she literally has to shake her head to clear _that_ particular memory away.  
  
With a big exhale of breath, she composes herself and opens the door.  
  
“I must speak to Klaus, immediately.”  
  
Elijah doesn’t wait for her answer before pushing past her into the house.  
  
“Well, hello to you too, Elijah,” she mumbles under her breath as the older vampire begins pacing the length of her living room.  
  
As if on cue, Klaus appears at the top of the stairs. His clothes are disheveled, but he seems to wear them with a confidence that makes the sloppiness look purposeful.  
  
“What brings you here in such a hurry, brother?”  
  
Elijah doesn’t pause for pleasantry, and gets right to the point. “It’s Mikael.”  
  
Caroline recognizes that name from the memory she had interloped. _Mikael_... their father.  
  
She looks up at Klaus and sees that his face has frozen over, his body tense. She can see his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows. He plasters a falsely placid smile over his face, but the smile seems constrained.  
  
“What about our dear dead dad?”  
  
Elijah’s expression is grim when he answers his brother. “He’s alive.”  
  
xxx  
  
Bill Forbes sits hunched over in the chair that his daughter once occupied. He steeples his fingers and presses them against his chin as the werewolf trembling before him recounts the events that led to his daughter’s escape.  
  
“They-they overpowered us, sir. The vampires, they’re merciless monsters! The little blonde one. She tore Evan’s spine right out of his back! I only barely managed to escape with my life-”  
  
Bill raises a single hand up, effectively cutting short the man’s speech.  
  
“What you mean to tell me is that you not only failed to guard the prisoner, but you ran away and abandoned your comrades?”  
  
The disgust is clear in his voice and the werewolf immediately collapses onto his knees.  
  
“Please! Forgive me! They were too much. Perhaps if I could have some of that blood I would have the strength to-”  
  
Bill’s hand lashes out, the back of it connecting hard against the other man’s cheek. The blow is strong enough that the sound of crunching bone resonates through the room. The werewolf howls in agonizing pain. Bill calmly wipes away the blood on his pant leg as the man curls into a fetal position on the floor, sobbing and whimpering.  
  
“ _Pathetic mongrel_ ,” Bill whispers harshly under his breath.  
  
Bill falls back into his seat, his fingers steepling once more. He presses their tips to his forehead, closing his eyes in deep thought.  
  
He remains immobile in this position for several moments. The withering werewolf collects himself and begins to slowly inch towards the door, mentally cursing at himself for getting involved with a lunatic like Bill Forbes. Just as his feet nears the threshold Bill’s eyes snaps open, their gaze pinning him in place.  
  
Bill doesn’t say a word as he gets up and lumbers over to where the werewolf lays prone on the floor. He reaches out and lifts the other man up by his shirt collars.  
  
“You are a sad, sorry excuse for a living creature. And a disgrace to the founding family that you belong to,” Bill breathes hotly. “But I happen to still have a use for you.”  
  
The werewolf would be pained to continue his association with the older man, hybrid blood be damned, but with his feet dangling a whole inch off the floor, he could hardly say no.  
  
“This is a chance for you to acquit yourself,” Bill continues coolly. “Do you think you can do that?”  
  
The werewolf meekly nods his head. A smile stretches Bill’s lips across his face. Somehow the smile makes him look even more bestial than kind.  
  
“Very good.”  
  
When he finishes issuing his orders he releases the werewolf, who upon hitting the ground scrambles quickly out the door. Left alone, Bill crosses the room and looks into a broken mirror that hangs on one wall. Bloodshot eyes, lined with puffy circles, stares back at him as his reflection. He rubs his hand along the side of his face, the gesture stretching and pulling his skin in a grotesque manner, as if the skin was made of clay instead flesh.  
  
“Soon,” he says to his reflection. And as if the mirror image had a mind of it’s own, it smiles back at him and mouths back the words, “ _soon_.”  
  
xxx  
  
Caroline sits curled up on the couch, her knees drawn up to her chin, listening to the two brother deliberate over their current paternal situation.  
  
Klaus had ordered her to go to her room, but she had retorted saying that she would be able to hear them anyways as the Forbes’ walls were thin and not immune to her vampiric hearing. Unable to send her away, lest she gets herself into some kind of trouble again, he had conceded and allowed her to stay.  
  
“Are you sure it is him?”  
  
“He quoted the Golden Sequence in blood over the mangled body of the witch.”  
  
“Sounds like dear old dad, alright,” Klaus says, smiling humorlessly. He exhales a sigh and shakes his head. “The Golden Sequence,” he scoffs. “Of course. He _would_ be so pretentious.”  
  
Klaus strolls over to one of the plump armchairs and plops down, crossing his legs over the knee. He manages to look regal despite the Forbes’s cozy surroundings.  
  
“How is this possible? He’s been gone for centuries. I was sure-”  
  
“It doesn’t matter what we thought,” Elijah bites. “He’s alive and he’s on your scent.”  
  
“If he’s been alive all this time then why now?”

 

  
“Perhaps he knows you’ve broken the hybrid curse,” Elijah points out.  
  
“You think that breaking the curse woken him?”  
  
Elijah shrugs. “I don’t care to think anything, lest we assume wrong. We know entirely too little about what Mikael is up to and that is exactly the problem.”  
  
Klaus sighs and sinks deeper into his seat.  
  
“What does Mikael want?” Caroline asks tentatively, the first time she’s spoken up since they made camp in the living room.  
  
Elijah is the one to turn to her and answer with calm severity. “To kill Niklaus.”  
  
Caroline looks to Klaus with one perfectly raised eyebrow. “Does _everyone_ want to kill you?”   
  
Elijah lets the smallest of smiles slip. “Niklaus doesn’t play well with others.”  
  
Klaus rolls his eyes and leans forward, hands clasped together on his knee. “It’s impossible. Mikael cannot be alive. I made sure-”  
  
“We never did know what happened to his body,” Elijah points out.  
  
“So on top of werewolves changing without the full moon, we have our father roaming about.”  
  
“Or maybe he’s the one behind the werewolves’ abnormal behavior,” Caroline chimes.  
  
They both turn to look at her and she blushes under their intense scrutiny.  
  
“I mean... Occam’s razor right? The simplest solution is the correct solution.”  
  
Elijah smiles. “I didn’t realize they taught such principles in high school.”  
  
“They don’t,” Caroline replies with a smirk. “I heard the term during an episode of _House_.”  
  
This time it’s Klaus who smiles. “And they say television doesn’t teach you anything.”  
  
Elijah turns to his brother then, smile waning, “Regardless of who is the one orchestrating the werewolves, the supply of the hybrid blood can only be linked to one.”  
  
Elijah’s eyes weigh down on him, but Klaus steels himself and matches his brother stare for stare.  
  
“You’ve been trading your blood with Gloria for the witch’s favor. It seems that she, in turn, has been selling your blood to werewolves which allow them to control their transformation. And with the full moon approaching rapidly, I can only imagine it would be hot commodity for those of the wolves who seek reprieve from their monthly change.”  
  
“So I see you’ve been looking into me.”  
  
“Of course I’ve been,” Elijah says with a tinge of exasperation. “Did you think I was going to just sit here and twiddle my thumbs? Wait for a baby vampire to dirty work for me? No offense, Miss Forbes.”  
  
“None taken,” Caroline shrugs. She was finding herself highly captivated by the two brothers’ conversation.  
  
Klaus shoots her a look of annoyance.  
  
“And how am I supposed to trust you then? When I know you have been conducting business behind my back.”  
  
Elijah let out a snort. “There’s a saying about a pot and kettle in here somewhere, Niklaus. Let’s not be purposefully dense now. You trust me as much as I trust _you_.”  
  
A flash of hurt surges through Klaus, the moment so slight Caroline would have not noticed if they did not have their bond. Outwardly he shows no emotion, his face hard and impassive, but Caroline sees it. She sees him swallowing his hurt and regret, pulling on his sardonic mask to hide behind.  
  
“And how do you suggest we resolve this... _trust_ issue?” Klaus snorts, eyebrow cocked haughtily.  
  
Elijah merely shrugs and crosses his arms over his chest. “Tell me what you had Gloria do for you and I will consider that as a sign of good faith. No more secrets, Niklaus. Otherwise, I will let Mikael come and you can deal with him by yourself.”  
  
“If he comes, he will rain destruction on us _all_. You think it is just me he is after? He’s after all of us. He hates our kind and he will not stop until he’s killed each and every one of us. And without me you will never see-”  
  
“The rest of our family?” Elijah finishes. “You’ve used that card one time too many, Niklaus. I am starting to no longer believe it.”  
  
The two glares at one another again, tensions mounting and making Caroline one awkward observer. After an elongated silence, she could see the subtle relaxation in Klaus’s shoulders and she knew he would be the first to break it even before he uttered a word.  
  
“Fine,” he grinds out. “In a gesture of good _faith_ then... I was giving Gloria my blood in exchange for her help with a spell.”  
  
“A spell? To break the bond?”  
  
“No. I was looking for something to help me with the issue with my hybrids and their premature deaths. I wasn’t going to waste a bargaining chip with Gloria over this,” he gestures between Caroline and himself, “ _bond_. Especially when I already know that it would take the Bennett witch to break it.”  
  
He walks slumps back into the armchair, propping his feet up on the coffee table.  
  
“So I thought to concentrate my battles elsewhere,” he says lightly with a shrug.  
  
“And did she discover anything?” Elijah questions.  
  
Klaus flashes his brother a smile. “I think I’ve shared enough to satisfy your requirement, brother.”  
  
Elijah’s mouth twitched, but he did not argue.  
  
“So, now that we’ve established a _trusting_ relationship,” Klaus says with a hint of sass that makes Caroline roll her eyes, “what are we going to do about father dearest?”  
  
“ _We_ don’t do anything. I can’t have you murdered before I find out where the rest of our family is located. You’re much too impulsive. I’ll be taking the risks from here on out.”  
  
“How very gallant of you,” Klaus drawls. “But if you think I will stay lying down when our father is roaming about god knows where, out for my blood-”  
  
“Unlike you, Niklaus, I am currently invulnerable. It may be true that he hates vampires, but we both know father is most interested in serving _your_ head upon a silver platter. And right now, he has a means of doing it.” Elijah casts his eyes towards Caroline and Klaus’s gaze follows.  
  
Caroline squirms. It was not their gaze, measuring her up, but the facts that Elijah had presented that made her uneasy. She’s a liability. _A weak link._ And after all that she’s been through, there is nothing else she hates more than feeling weak or victimized.  
  
“I’m not afraid,” Caroline says bravely, careful to keep her tone firm.  
  
Her words earn her another smile from Elijah and a scowl from his brother.  
  
“Which is entirely the problem,” Klaus exhales. “If you ran into him you’d probably bare your fangs without a thought and get your head ripped off.”  
  
Caroline glowers at him, but he ignores her.  
  
“As much as I hate to admit it, Elijah is right. I’m vulnerable because of our bond and you are in no condition to defend yourself. Your kidnapping is proof of that.”  
  
He stands up abruptly and scans the room. She can almost hear the gears in his head turning, calculating and weighing options.  
  
“We have to move,” he announces. “Too many people know of this residence, making it compromised.” He looks at her, his expression stern. “Take only what is necessary, we must move quickly.”  
  
She untangles herself from her sitting position and stands up to meet him.  
  
“I’m not going anywhere! I have school and-”  
  
He gives her an exasperated look. “American history and cheerleading practice is second priority to staying alive. Consider it self-preservation, love. This is not up for discussion.”  
  
She turns to Elijah, as if the other Original could help convince his chauvinistic, thick headed brother. But Elijah merely shrugs and raises his hands up in a symbol of surrender.  
  
“I wouldn’t want to get in between a lovers’ spat,” the other Original says.  
  
The comment takes her off guard and she begins to sputter, looking back and forth between the two Original brothers.  
  
“Wha-! No! How did y- Just-,” she lets out a scream of aggravation. “ _Argh_! You both suck!”  
  
Caroline roughly shoves past them and runs up the stairs back to her room, slamming the door hard enough to shake the windows.  
  
When the foundation of the house stopped rumbling, Klaus turns to his brother.  
  
“Lovers’ spat?”

 

  
“I can smell you all over her,” Elijah says nonchalantly. He lifts his head, as if sniffing the air. “It was recent.”  
  
“It was the adrenaline. You know, animal instincts kicking in after the rescue. It’s was a one time thing.”  
  
Elijah’s face takes on a look of utter graveness.  
  
“For her sake, I sincerely hope so.” As Elijah turns his back to Klaus, his hand reaching towards the door, he pauses and says over his shoulder, “You destroy the things you love Klaus. It would be a pity if Miss Forbes becomes one of them.”  
  
And then the door shuts, leaving Klaus feeling like he’s been physically slapped.  
  
xxx  
  
She drags her feet the entire way, even though she has long since accepted the merits of Klaus’s plans. After driving down windy narrow roads that she didn’t recognize, despite living in Mystic Falls all of her life, they end up in the driveway of a large, handsome white house in the middle of nowhere.  
  
“We’re here,” Klaus says nonchalantly as he gets out of the car.  
  
Caroline follows suit, eyes wide and staring at the majestic mansion that stood in the middle of complete wilderness. The white trimming looks like frosting on a cake and she suddenly feels very much like Hansel and Gretel before the witch’s house.  
  
Klaus’s hand at the small of her back startles her and she turns to look at him.  
  
“Impressed?” he asks smugly.  
  
Suddenly she remembers that she is supposed to be angry and annoyed with him.  
  
“The Lockwood mansion is just as big,” she replies cattily, even though Tyler’s abode suddenly seems miniscule in memory.  
  
He lifts an eyebrow at her. Before he can make whatever sardonic quip he has prepared, she reaches out and yanks her suitcase out of his hands and begins marching up the porch steps, determined not to let him have the last word.  
  
The dramatic effect of her gesture gets nullified when she reaches the front doors and finds them locked.  
  
She curses silently as she waits for him to come open the door. Sure enough, without looking back, she hears his footsteps up the steps. She feels him pause behind her, his proximity a sudden warmth that makes her skin tingle. Unbidden memories of the night of her rescue floats to the surface of her mind like flotsam.   
  
When he reaches for the door, his chest presses against her back, arm brushing the side of hers, and his breath a phantom kiss against her ear.  
  
Her pulse is drumming in her ears.  
  
The moment the lock clicks open; she twists the doorknob and rushes inside. She feels breathless, as if she’s been running for miles.  
  
“There are many rooms upstairs,” he calls after her as he shuts the door behind them. “You may choose whichever one you like.”   
  
She doesn’t answer, doesn’t turn to face him, afraid that he’ll notice the pink on her cheeks. And then she remembers their bond and feels ridiculous for trying to hide anything from the insufferable hybrid and tosses her suitcase to the floor with a thump.  
  
Klaus doesn’t even raise an eyebrow towards her antics. He just continues on, walking about the room, opening up curtains and inspecting the place for dust.  
  
“The kitchen is to your left, the dining room is connected to it, and there are several dens throughout,” he continues. “I’m afraid I haven’t had time to stock the fridge yet due to the haste of our situation, but everything else is fully furnished. I can have someone bring some blood bags for you later or if you prefer something _fresher..._ that too can be arranged, if you so desire.”  
  
She turns to him then to shoot him a glare. “Blood bags will be fine, thanks.”  
  
He merely shrugs, unperturbed. “Suit yourself.”  
  
She tosses her bags on the floor and put her hands on her hips. She glances around, taking in the place. Despite herself, she’s rather impressed.  
  
“Where did you find this place on such short notice?”  
  
He hesitates for just a moment before answering. “It’s mine. I had it built... a long time ago for a stupid reason,” he says, running a hand along one of the dark wood desks.  
  
She suddenly felt a stab of melancholia that she recognizes that is not her own, but Klaus doesn’t say a word and so she doesn’t push.  
  
“Well! Aren’t we a pair? Playing house while running away from our daddies,” she says with a droll of sarcasm. It’s hard to stay mad at him when he looks so lost.  
  
“Aren’t we all somebody’s children in the end?” he replies vaguely.  
  
“He’s still out there you know... my dad.” She’s finally voicing the little shadow of fear that has been clouding the back of her mind. The nightmares and the memories of torture still sting her skin like ghost wounds. She wraps her arms about herself subconsciously. “Do you think he’s mixed up with all this witch business with yours?”  
  
Klaus shrugs. “I can’t say... we’ll have to look into this matter further. It could be mere coincidence.”  
  
“I don’t believe in coincidences.”  
  
He takes on a strange expression then.  
  
Tilting his head slightly to one side to study her, he says, “What do you believe in then?”  
  
It’s an oddly intimate question, Klaus has never asked her such things before, and it takes her by surprise.   
  
“You mean what’s my religion?”  
  
Klaus shrugs, “I mean exactly what I asked. What do you believe in? Whether it’s a higher power or a scientific principle, it matters not.”  
  
What _does_ she believe in? She supposes that she believes in God, but from what she knows of religion is that they often condemn vampires and considering that she is one... it’s a bit disheartening to think she’s been damned. Mulling the question more in her head, she’s not quite sure how to answer.  
  
“I believe,” she begins, “that I better go unpack my things before it gets dark.” With her head cheerleader authoritative voice she says, “I hope this place gets electricity and I expect hot water for my bath.”  
  
He smiles, lets the topic drop and she mentally praise herself for her smooth deflection.  
  
“Yes, I guess you should. There are bathrooms upstairs. Don’t worry. Everything should be in working order.”  
  
She nods curtly then and proceed to walk up the stairs. Just as she’s halfway up she hears his voice calling from below.  
  
“If you need me, I could wash your back.” There’s a distinct smugness in his tone.  
  
“I’ll be fine on my own!” she retorts, cheeks flaming red once again.  
  
She makes a mad dash up the rest of the stairs, the sound of his quiet chuckling drifting from below.  
  
xxx  
  
She comes back down, hair damp and towel in hand, to see him nearly out the door.  
  
“Where are you going?”  
  
The sight of him leaving makes her heart rate spike.  
  
“Important business, stay here and I’ll be back soon.”  
  
“You’re leaving me alone?” she asks, trying to rein in the panic in her voice despite the thrumming of her pulse. She doesn’t like the idea of staying by herself inside this big old house filled with vast empty rooms that seems to only echo silence.  
  
Klaus pauses, hand on the doorknob. He turns towards her and she tries her best not to look as pathetic as she feels.  
  
“Don’t fret. You’re perfectly safe here.”  
  
His words are soft and he reaches out with his hand as if he means to touch her. He almost does, fingers nearly grazing her cheek, but then he stops. His fingertips are mere centimeters away yet they feel miles further and she’s suddenly full of want for his touch. She blinks at the thought, feeling slightly shocked that it doesn’t bring upon panic. It’s funny considering how much she’s always hated him, despised him, reviled him. And yet now that emotion felt...foreign. After all he saved her. He says he’s not her savior, he’s no one’s savior, and she’s not naive enough to think that he’s any kind of hero... but he _did_ save her. That fact remains true despite all the prejudices he has weighed against him. She has built him up to be such a monster, but he’s made promises to her and so far he’s kept them. This is more than she can say for the other people in her life. He’s... not so bad, she thinks. And she doesn’t hate him, she realizes. She doesn’t hate him at all.  
  
His fingers curl, as if to pull away, but she steps forward, feeling brave. Their skin touch and his palm feel warm. She brings a hand up to cover his where it rests on her cheek.  
  
“Don’t be gone long,” she says softly, her eyes meeting his unwavering.  
  
Klaus feels a tightness in his chest as the young vampire holds his hand hostage. He finds himself oddly enjoying the sensation. And then he recalls Elijahs’ parting words and his body tenses.  
  
“I’m not an antihero in one of your romance novels, you know,” he says, steeling his voice.  
  
She doesn’t flinch at his coldness.  
  
“I know,” she answers softly. “And I’m not the damsel that gets killed at the end of horror movies either.”  
  
He’s taken aback by her answer.  
  
“And I realize that I’ve been putting you in a mold. But you saved me the other night.”  
  
“It was self-preservation, if the werewolves-”  
  
“I meant when I had the nightmare,” she clarifies.  
  
He stares at her.  
  
“You didn’t have to comfort me… but you did. So, thank you.”

 

 

 

He doesn’t say a word.

 

 

 

“You’re not...” she pauses for a moment, hunting for a word. “ _Terrible_.”  
  
She releases his hand and it drops to his side. He doesn’t look at her. He just turns to face the door once more.

 

 

 

The door creaks open just a slight when she hears him finally speaking up.  
  
“I’ll be back soon,” he says over his shoulder.  
  
Caroline manages a small smile and a slight incline of her head in a nod. He pushes open the door and steps across the threshold. The door clicks shut behind him.   
  
A moment passes by as she waits for the sound of Klaus’s car to fade into the distance and then she trudges back up the stairs. Despite the silence that resumes, it doesn’t feel as deafening as she had thought.   
  
She doesn’t notice the shrouded figure standing mere feet away in the darkness.


	10. An Important Author’s Note (and Apology)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dearest reader,
> 
> Many thanks to all of you that have reviewed, favorited, followed, or in any other way supported this fic. It truly means a lot to me that you enjoyed it and I’m so sorry that I wasn’t able to continue it. It’s been over a year since I’ve updated and I know many of you are still looking forward to another chapter. I’m sorry to say that since I’ve stopped watching Vampire Diaries, I’ve lost about all my motivation to continue this fic. That said, I had a lot of ideas for the story and where I wanted to it to go, so I decided I would share with you all some of the writing I had for the rest of the story. Lots of it is incomplete, stopping midsentence with plenty of typos. There’s also a few notes in there that I left for myself. Lines that I wrote that I liked, but didn’t quite know where to fit in, etc… It’s not at all a complete ending, but I thought some of you would enjoy having a little bit of closure. I would also be happy to answer questions on my tumblr (fadingtales) if you feel like you just need a bit more information. I won’t guarantee that I’ll be able to answer everything completely since the story never finished forming in my head. But I’ll be happy to provide any of my thoughts about where I had wanted the story to go. Thank you once again for being such loyal readers and again I’m sorry for not finishing. It’s just a very difficult thing to accomplish when you lose all motivation and your love for the show wanes. I hope you all understand and enjoy what I have to share.
> 
> Lots of love and thanks,  
> fadingtales

For once Klaus graces her with dreamless sleep, but for whatever asinine reason, Caroline can’t keep her eyes closed for long. She blames the unfamiliar bed and sheets. As luxurious as they are, they’re not her own. She feels like an intruder here. A foreigner in an unknown land.

 

After tossing and turning for the millionth time, she tosses the heavily embroidered quilts aside and makes her way to the kitchen. That is, if she can remember how to get there.

 

The house is too big, too many rooms and doors and she curses Klaus for his extravagance. The floorboard creaks beneath her feet and she winces. Every little sound she makes ricochets, echoing throughout the many halls and empty rooms. It’s an eerie effect and she finds herself irrationally conjuring up old fears of boogie monsters and things-that-goes-bump-in-the-night. Ironic because that’s exactly what she is.

 

After getting lost twice, she finally finds the kitchen. Opening up the fridge, she is disappointed by a single box of baking soda and  rows and rows of empty shelves.

 

“Of course,” Caroline mutters underneath her breath. Her stomach grumbles for emphasis.

 

She slams the fridge door with a huff and groans. In the distance something else slams.

 

Her heart leaps to his throat. She instinctively reaches for the first pointy object she can find, a kitchen knife.

 

Klaus had said no one knew the location of this house and he certainly didn’t mention any late night visitors. When she closes her eyes, she can still see the carnage of the cabin in woods. Her hair stands on end and she feels phantom pain from all the places where she’s been burned, stabbed, poked, and prodded. She’s not ready to go through it all again.

 

Swallowing the lump in her throat she crouches low, hiding herself in the shadows. Sounds of boots scraping against the expensive hardwood floors of the foyer rumble in her ears, competing over the sound of her thundering heartbeat.

 

It’s feeling all too much like a bad horror movie and Caroline has had enough of blood and gore to last multiple lifetimes.

 

She inches her way towards the large kitchen pantry and quickly slips inside, hiding behind the shuttered door.

 

It’s perfect timing because the footsteps have gotten closer. The stranger’s heavy rubber soles makes squeaking noises against the marble flooring of the kitchen.

 

A shadow falls across her through the open spaces of the door’s shutter panels and Caroline catches herself from gasping, eyes wide.

 

The shadow turns slowly in her direction. Realizing that this was her only chance of having the element of surprise as an advantage, she lunges, baring her teeth.

 

She tackles the dark figure and he hits his head hard against the marble tiles with a resounding crack that would have surely killed any mortal.

 

Of course, being in Mystic Falls, Caroline knows that chances of taking out an enemy is never as easy. True enough the fallen figure stirs and she doesn’t waste any time pinning him down and striking once again. She’s not going to be the slutty cheerleader victim in any B rated horror flick. If she was going down, she was going down fighting.

 

Her killing instincts are an all time high and she goes for the jugular. An arm blocks her way and she sinks her fangs in deep. He shoves her off and she hisses, growls, and raises her arm to aim her knife towards his face. She’s nearly within striking distance, the blood on her lips fueling her adrenaline, she’s almost enjoying herself when-

 

“Caroline!”

 

The familiar voice jars her out of her red fueled haze. She blinks. The shadowed figure has moved into the moonlight and she can see his face now.

 

“ _Stefan_?” she breathes.

 

He nods, nursing an injured arm. Blood and sweat give his usually perfectly coiffed hair a damp and matted appearance. She’s suddenly incredibly conscious of the blood, _his_ blood, on her face and the knife still clenched in her fist. She drops knife and it clatters to the floor.

 

In one quick instant she went from being terrified to being terribly angry.

 

“What the hell are you doing here?!” She screams at him. “God! I could’ve killed you!”

 

“You could’ve tried,” he says, crooked smile on his lips.

 

Somehow Stefan’s surprisingly sarcastic retort eases the tension and she feels herself calming down.

 

“Are you okay?” she amends, her voice softer this time.She makes her way towards him, gingerly touching his arm.

 

“Yeah. It’s healed already,” Stefan reassures her, raising his hand up so that she can see that her fang marks have already disappeared. “What were you doing in the closet?”

 

“It’s a pantry,” she corrects. She’s suddenly feeling very foolish. “I... I thought you were an intruder...”

 

“So an intruder comes in and your first thought is bake a cake and the second thing was to go all Kill Bill on his ass.”

 

“Ha. Ha. Laugh it up, Mr. Salvatore” she replies, rolling her eyes.

 

“It’s a little funny.”

 

“It’s _not_ funny. How did you find this place anyway? No one is supposed to know about it.”

 

“Klaus called me. He said that you would need this,” Stefan reaches into his jacket and pulls out a blood bag.

 

Stefan was surprised when Klaus had called. Surprised the hybrid Original would willingly involve him in this delicate plan of his and divulge the location of his safe house.

 

“You care about Caroline,” Klaus had said, matter-of-factly. “And I _trust_ that you will not do anything that would result in compromising her safety.”

 

Somehow that last part sounded mildly like a threat, but coming from Klaus, Stefan wasn’t surprised.

 

Caroline smiles at the sight of the blood bag  and takes it from him. “Thanks.”

 

She’s ravenous and the sight of the blood makes her mouth water. Stefan watches her as she sips straight from the bag.

 

“How are you feeling?”

 

After a long gulp, she wipes her mouth and smiles. “Much better.”

 

“

 

A crash outside makes her jump. “What was that?”

 

“Probably just the wind,” Stefan says.

 

Caroline isn’t convinced, but she nods anyways. “You’re right... I’m just a little paranoid... that’s all.”

 

Another screech coming from outside unnerves her, but Stefan puts his hand on her arm reassuringly.

 

“It’s okay. It’s just probably a tree br-”

 

His sentence is cut off by the sound of the door bell going off.

 

“I don’t think tree branches don’t ring doorbells.”

 

Stefan is already standing, the muscles in his neck tense.

 

“Was there anyone else coming here with you?” Caroline asks, her voice uneasy.

 

“No,” Stefan answers, his voice taking on a low, dark tone. He pushes Caroline behind him as they slowly make their way towards the front of the house.

 

They exchanged nervous glances before another crash steals their attention and they’re scrambling.

 

Shards of wood fly everywhere as the front door bursts open. Caroline’s ears are ringing. She vaguely recalls Stefan tackling her to the ground, but when she looks up she can’t find him anywhere.

 

“Stefan!” she calls out.

 

Her head is pounding, as is her pulse. She struggles to pick herself up off the floor, but before she can stand somebody is slamming her back against the floor. A hand wrapped around the back of her neck. She screams and struggles against her captor and manages to throw

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


xxx

 

“Wait,” she calls out. “Will you sleep with me?”

 

He turns to look at her and she blushes upon meeting his gaze.

 

“Not like _that_ ,” she is quick to point out. “Just... sleep. You know, with our eyes closed.”

 

He could make a comment about various “sleeping” activities with eyes closed, but decides not to given her flustered expression.

 

“I’m... scared of the dreams and I’ll sleep better with you’re here,” she confesses.

 

It’s a vulnerable thing she’s admitted to and it doesn’t escape her notice she is willing to admit it to _him_ out of all people.

 

He stares at her and Caroline awkwardly stands there, waiting for his response. His silence melts her bravery and she feels herself blush a deep scarlet.

 

When the silence drags on agonizingly, she manages to stutters out, “You know, what? Never mind.”

 

She turns her back to him. She doesn’t know what she was thinking, blurting out that confession. She busies herself with preparing for bed when she hears him speak up finally.

 

“Move over,” he says roughly, as he clambers onto the bed.

 

She stares at him with wide innocent eyes and he has fight against the corrupt thoughts that overwhelms him. She doesn’t realize she’s invited a wolf into her bed. But for now he’ll play the gentleman and instead of acting on his urges, he lays down beside her, on top of the pink satin sheets and fluffy blanket. She switches the lamp beside her bed off and slips underneath the covers, pulling it up until it reaches her nose. He can’t see her mouth, but there’s a twinkle of a smile in her eyes that annoys him.

 

This girl doesn’t know the effect she has on him. All that he’s allowed himself to feel, to not feel. All the control and restraint and self-discipline to keep that cold heart of his cold, impenetrable in its encasing of frost. All of it, all the ice, cracks in her presence. He can feel the rumble of the avalanche that is coming, but he doesn’t know what to make of it.

 

He lays there stiffly, arms crossed over his chest and head propped up high on two pillows stacked on top of one another. He closes his eyes and tries his best to ignore her shifting besides him.

 

He’s never done this kind of thing before, just sleep with another person in bed. He’s a master at other things, he can seduce and chase and play. But this.... this is strange to him and he feels uncomfortable. And with all of her moving, deliciously rubbing up against him, she’s not making it very easy on him either.

 

After the millionth time of her twisting and turning about he turns to her and says, “Are you going to sleep or not? Because if not, I’m leaving.”

 

She huffs and turns onto her side so she can face him. “I can’t sleep...”

 

It’s a statement that should’ve sounded whiny and petulant but instead comes out more exhausted than anything. Even in the dim lighting, he could see the deep shadows beneath her eyes.

 

“Aren’t you uncomfortable sleeping like that?” she says with a raised eyebrow, her eyes raking up and down his stiff posture.

 

“It’s efficient. I can spring into action this way.”

 

She lets out a laugh. “Spring into action?”

 

“We do have a murderous Original vampire patriarch on the loose.”

 

“

  
  
  


xxx

 

Stefan had warned her against going out alone and if Klaus knew she was gone he’d probably freak out. But she was tired of being cooped up inside. Mystic Falls has always been her home and she wasn’t going to let herself be afraid in it. Not anymore.

 

Besides, all she wanted was her favorite coffee drink at the cafe next to the grill. It was a quick fifteen minute drive from her house, faster if she ran but she didn’t want to risk it, and she’d be back before Klaus could even wake up.

 

She’s in the middle of getting her white chocolate mocha on ice when she sees him in the corner of her eye. One of the werewolf hunters, the very first one she had met when she had been taken. She recalls him being specifically fond of knives. He looks banged up, but otherwise not too worse for wear.

 

She pivots, turning so that her face was shielded from him. She tries to slip away, but she can sense a presence behind her. She doesn’t dare turn around, but she can hear footsteps approaching from behind. Her pulse is a humming beat, her nerves stretched taut like skin over a drum. Finally the footsteps stops and she feels her breath catch her throat. A hand falls onto her shoulder and she whips around, hands raised and fangs bared. Only to find a startled Tyler Lockwood behind her.

 

“Whao there!”

 

She quickly pulls him into a tight hug, her heart still hammering. He hugs her back stiffly, stroking her hair.

 

“Hey, are you alright?”

 

She pulls away and plasters a weak smile on her face.

 

“Yeah, I’m... I’m fine. I just er... miss you.”

 

He gives her an unconvinced look, but smiles back anyways.

 

“Um, it’s kinda stuffy in here. Do you mind if we talk outside?”

 

Tyler shrugs and she leads the way out of the Grill, keeping watch on the werewolf at the corner of her eyes. They make it outside without him following her and she lets out a breath of relief.

 

“Are you sure you’re okay? You’re kinda tense,” Tyler remarks.

 

She shakes her head and smiles again at him, keeping up with pretenses as best as she could. “Just too much coffee I guess,” she replies.

She didn’t want to get Tyler involved. He already has so much to deal with after his dad’s death, the Mason thing, and then the whole werewolf thing. He shouldn’t be pulled into vampire problems as well. Though she knew she would have to let him know about the pack in town sooner or later. She opted for the later. Right now, she just wanted to bask in a slice of normalcy.

 

“Coffee?” He glances down at the extra large cup in her hand and then back up at her, his expression bemused. “Is it wise to drink that much coffee on a school night?”

 

She gives him yet another weak smile in a long line of weak smiles. “I’ve been having nightmares... and besides I got a lot of geometry homework to catch up on.”

 

She was afraid that he would press for more, but he doesn’t. He merely nods and continues the small talk.

 

“So what have you been up to? I feel like we haven’t seen each other in a while.”

  
“Yeah... my er... my dad has been in town and I’ve been sorta caught up with dealing with him,” she says. Caroline has since learned that the best way to tell a lie, is if you insert a bit of truth into it.

 

Tyler gives her a sympathetic look. They’ve known each other since diapers, both having been born and raised in Mystic Falls, and so he knew about the fall out with her dad.

 

“Well, we should hang out sometime. Actually, I’m gonna go meet up with a cousin of mine. He just came into town and I was gonna show him around. Want to come with?”

 

A part of her knew she should decline the invitation, but after being so long cooped up in her own house and all of the craziness... she couldn’t deny the enticement of Tyler’s normal hangout. Still, she was already risking Klaus’s wrath upon his discovery she was gone and she really had to head back.

 

“I don’t know... I-”

 

Before she can finish her reply, Tyler is already waving someone over. She turns around and her heart leaps into her chest. The werewolf at the Grill.

 

xxx

 

She makes a run for it but soon more werewolves join them, block every available exit. One makes a grab for her and she screams and twists in his hold. She manages to jab her elbow hard into his gut, thereby escaping his grip. She is free for but a second when another pair of hands grab hers.

 

“Hey! What the hell is going on?” Tyler shouts. “Let go of her! Caroline-”

 

Before Tyler could move towards her, his cousin blocks his way.

 

“It’s okay, Ty. Let your cuz handle this.”

 

Bill/Mikael using the werewolf to trick Tyler who will in turn lure Caroline out.

 

“How could you? He was your brother! I just don’t understand you. You _________ but then you save me. I just don’t get it! Which side are you on?!”

 

“I’m on the side that keeps me alive and it just so happens that that includes keeping _you_ alive. _That’s_ the side I’m on.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


She clenches her teeth, the pain ripping through her. Everything was on fire. Her nerves were electric.

 

Glancing down at her hands she sees her fingers shortening into paws. Hair, growing at an alarming speed, covers them. Her heart is hammering in her chest and her eyes widen as panic sets in.

 

“I thought you said she was a vampire!” one of them says.

 

She doesn’t get to hear his colleague’s reply because at that moment she felt like every bone in her body was shattering. Breaking and reforming again into unnatural shapes. She lets out a loud guttural scream. She was sweating bullets and she felt her body contorting and twisting.

 

“She’s turning!”

 

Too much chaos. She couldn’t think straight through the pain and when she glanced down she saw that her nails had lengthened into claws. She falls down, landing on her back and for a moment through the haze of agony she saw the moon, round and full shining down on her and realization dawned on her quickly darkening mind.

 

It’s been exactly two months since the spell bound Klaus and her together. Why was this happening now? And then she recalls the very important detail involved in activating the curse. You had to kill somebody. It had only been last week when she killed one of the hunters, pulled his spine straight out of his body. It had been the first time she killed since the spell bound her together with Klaus. That’s why it was activating now.

 

Another ripple of pain courses through her and she screams again.

 

She was turning into a werewolf.

 

xxx

 

Her body was a nightmare her mind could not escape. Teeth and claws, darkness, and the sharp, pungent scent of coppery blood. Red smears across her vision. Her body was the wolf’s while her mind stayed human, taking in every visceral, gory scene with abject horror.

 

Blood, so much blood. And if she thought being a vampire heightened her senses, the combination of the wolf is tenfold. Everything was a whirl. The very air buzzing with all the sounds, the sharp stench of copper stings her nostrils. She looks down and the human inside the wolf recognizes a face in all the carnage.

 

_Tyler_. Tyler ripped up and bleeding, eyes staring blankly upwards to the sky.

 

Her heart hammers harder, faster, as her human mind slowly comes to grips with the scene before her.

 

No, no, _no_.

 

Her feet stumbles on shattered glass, she didn’t even realize that she was backing away, and she stares down at herself. She’s savage eyes and elongated teeth, blonde white fur stained across the muzzle with blood oxidizing into the color of rust. She tries to cry but only a howl comes out. The sound echoes into the night and knowing no where else to go, the ground littered with limbs and blood and flesh, she runs.

 

xxx

 

She growls at him, her fangs bared.

 

“

 

She was beautiful. Even in with her fur matted with dirt, debris, and blood, she is beautiful. She’s all lean muscle and

  
  


In that moment, she realizes there is no going back. She’s made her claim. She’s picked a side and now she has to learn to make her bed. She’s sleeping with the devil after all.

 

“Are you alright?”

 

She closes her eyes as he caresses her cheek, leans her forehead against his, breathes in his scent.

 

She’s signed her own death certificate with this kiss. Klaus is not a man of few enemies. And it won’t be the last time someone will try and use her to get to him.

 

She wonders then how it could be that this feeling that is slowly suffocating her, killing her, is the only thing that makes her feel so _alive_.

 

xxx

 

“I should hate him, you know. He’s the cause of everything bad that has ever happened. But I... I just can’t bring myself to. I can’t just look at it in black and white anymore. He’s blurred everything. And I know that it would be better if I killed him. He trusts me now,” she lets out a bitter laugh at the last part. “And it would solve everything, but I-” Her words stumbles over her tongue. “I can’t. I can’t do it. And I know that if anyone else does I wouldn’t be able to take it.”

 

Bonnie looks at her with a sympathetic expression and reaches over to cover her hand with hers. It’s a reassuring gesture, but it does little to comfort her.

 

“Do you know the origins of the spell that bound you and Klaus together?”

 

A puzzled frown wrinkles the brow above Caroline’s eyes and she shakes her head.

 

Bonnie gives her a small smile before answering. “It’s a love spell.”

 

xxx

  


“So maybe I fucking care about her!”

 

Stefan stares at him, stunned by the outburst.

 

“So how about we stop wasting time and find out where she is because if anything happens to her again, I swear to god the worst nightmares you’ve ever had. Every deepest, darkest, fear. I will be worse.”

  
  
  
  


Bill gasps for breath, his chest falling and rising rapidly as he tried to breath. Klaus kneels down besides him, smiling a wicked grin.

 

“Yes, breathe. Try and cherish it. Because I promise you, if you ever come near Caroline again, you shall breathe your last.”

  
  
  


She catches herself smiling at him and instantly turns away, avoiding his gaze.

 

“Uh, I gotta go. History project to work on with uh, with Bonnie.”

 

“Bonnie’s not in your history class,” he points out. A fact that he knew from

  
  
  


She frowns at him and swipes her books from the kitchen counter. “Since when were you an expert on who my classmates are? And I just misspoke. I meant to say English. It’s a Shakespeare assignment, due Tuesday and we have to pick a sonnet to analyze.”

 

“Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so.”

 

She pauses in stuffing her books into her bag to send a furrowed look in his direction. “What?”

 

“Sonnet 140. One of Shakespeare’s ‘Dark Lady’ sonnets about his unrequited love for his adulterous mistress.”

  


xxx

  
  
  


xxx

  


Somehow it is her kindness that irritates him the most. She flashes him that smile of hers that makes him sick to his stomach and his agitation finally breaks. He slaps her hand away and begins pacing angrily.

 

“Hey!” she protests.

 

“This is all of your fault!”

 

He whirls on her, pining her to the wall.

 

“What are you talking about? Let go of me!” She squirmed under his hold, but his grip was too strong.

 

“This stupid spell and your silly little _feelings_ ,” he bites out the last word as if it were poison on his tongue.

 

“My feelings are _not_ silly. You’re just a psychopath!”

 

“That. Is. Correct,” he snarls the words. “For centuries I have been unmerciful. I have killed and maimed and tortured and never once lost an ounce of sleep. I have murdered members of my own family without a second's hesitation. And now look at me! I’m reduced to drinking bunny rabbits and squirrels!”

 

She shakes her head with a look of disgust clearly apparent.

 

“And you’re proud of all those horrible things? Have you ever loved anyone?!”

 

“Don’t _you_ tell me about love! You are nothing, but a little girl. You know nothing!”

 

“

  


“Stop it!”

 

“Stop what? Being nice? Because god knows you don’t deserve it. You know just when I think you’re not a total creep, you prove otherwise.”

 

He whirls on her, his eyes murderous, but she stands her ground.

  


“You’re the most impossible person on this planet. No the whole _universe_!”

 

Her words gets muffled when he covers her lips with his in a savage kiss. For a moment she’s too shock to do anything but stand there and let him ravage her with his lips. He is, as expected, a very good kisser. And it’s been a very long time since she’s been kissed so very thoroughly or expertly. Lost for a moment as his hand encircles her waist, she allows herself to momentarily close her eyes and enjoy the skills of the perennial rake.  When his hand reaches beneath the thin layer of her shirt her eyes fly open, suddenly realizing who it is she is kissing, and she shoves him away.

 

They’re both more than a little breathless and for a moment they just stand there, staring at each other under the weight of all the tension between them.

 

She shakes her head silently, her hands brought up to her lips. Lips that had previously been locked with his. How warm they still felt from his searing kiss.

  


xxx

 

Unlike Damon, unlike Matt, unlike Tyler, unlike any guy she’s ever kissed before really. They were all smooth shaven, and even when they were rough there was a boyish charm to them. But not him. The scruff on his chin scrapes against her skin and a moan escapes her mouth. He quickly covers her lips with his to smother it. Rakes one hand down side of her thighs while bringing the other up to knot itself in her hair, pulling just a tad too tight. He doesn’t treat her like porcelain. Doesn’t treat her like she’s fragile and breakable. He pushes her to her limits, makes her want more, demanding, yet yielding at the same time.

  


xxx

 

“Like you’ve said, brother. Love is a vampire’s greatest weakness.”

 

“Elijah!” he warns.

 

“I’m sorry that it had to be you,” Elijah whispers in her ear.

 

Caroline doesn’t have time to question what he means before his hand plunges through her chest.

 

“You have disarmed me. Ripped down my walls, tore off my armor. In spite of all my efforts to erase you, you tear my defenses asunder and because of you I am _weak._

 

Klaus has never possessed the cool calm that Elijah has, he was a more volatile sort. Eyes that shone with menace and threats paired with honeyed smiles. You always knew when he was angry. His boiling wrath barely concealed underneath that handsome surface. But never had she seen him look so completely defenseless than she did then.

  
  


Klaus running away from the Hunter. Original organization that hunts down vampires. Forbes family is one of the original lines.

 

“Did you ever notice her family name, Klaus? It’s Forbes,” Elijah says casually.

 

He stills at that.

 

“From "Forbear", a patronym taken by one Ochonochar after slaying a bear... Those old Gaels weren’t very creative with their analogies. Comparing us vampires to bears and beasts to slay.“* ([http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Forbes_(surname)](http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Forbes_%28surname%29))

 

“I don’t understand, what does Caroline and her family have anything to do with who Klaus is running away from.”

 

“She’s his descendant.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


“But it’s not just Klaus who was running... it was all of us. I can’t let you live.”

 

“You’re a contradiction, Caroline. You’re a vampire in the world’s oldest Vampire hunting family. I’m surprised that your own family hasn’t yet murdered you themselves. The Hunters were never very open minded folk. They were the most bigoted lot prejudiced against our kind.”

 

xxx

xxx

  


“Come along, Caroline. We need to go.”

 

“No.”

 

“What?”

 

“I said no. I’m not coming with you. You saved me, I saved you. We’re even now.”

 

He turns to look at her and doubles back. Her expression was unreadable. Her skills at camouflaging her feelings have improved with his influence. Just as hers had chipped away at his own mask of indifference.

 

He reaches out mentally as if to sense her emotions, but it’s like hitting a brick wall now that the spell has been lifted and he comes up empty handed.

 

“You can’t stay here,” he points out.

 

“No, I can’t.”

 

He stares at her.

 

“You lied to me,” she says finally, frustration leaking into her voice.

 

“ _To protect you_ ,” he emphasizes.

 

“Well you don’t need to do that anymore. The spell has been broken,” she retorts.

 

“Caroline,” he says slowly. “Get in the car. We can argue about this later.”

 

He reaches for her hand, but she recoils from him.

 

“Do not manhandle me!” she shouts at him.

  


xxx

 

Elena smiles at her, mouths something like “thank you”, before embraces the flames.

 

Caroline screams after her, but it’s too late.

 

The flames quickly swallows the brunette, the inferno roaring and growing higher as if it was reaching a crescendo.

 

And then, whiteness.

  
  
  


xxx

 

It’s been only a day since the spell was broken. Twenty four hours. One thousand four hundred and forty minutes. Eighty six thousand four hundred seconds. And despite the centuries, expanse of time he has walked the earth, he has never felt like time has ever ticked any slower. Without the tether to her he is lost. Like flotsam floating on the waves. Broken and shattered and never to be whole again.

  
  
  


xxx

 

He takes a step forward, his hands outstretched to stroke her tear stained cheeks. She takes a step back in the same moment.

 

Caroline shakes her head and brushes away her own tears.

 

“You’re not always too bad,” she sighs. “You forget that this bond thing is a two way street. I feel what you feel. That dream...memory,” she begins.

 

He frowns at the mention of the topic. His irritation flaring up once again

 

“Don’t be so grumpy about it,” she says with her eyes closed and without looking at him.

 

How do you kill an invulnerable beast? You turn him into a man.

 

It’s ironic that just when he’s shown that he wasn’t just a monster incapable of feeling that that would be the moment that he was destructible.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


ENDING:

 

They’re not together, but it doesn’t matter. He can still feel her. Her featherlight emotions trickling through whatever is left of that tenuous link that connected them. Occasionally he’ll purposely send her a feeling. Just a hint of something, be it happy or sad, in her direction. Just so that she knows he’s still there.

 

In return he’ll sometimes dream of winter sea shores on high cliffs, and a blonde figure in the distance. A ghost of a smile on her beautiful face. They never go to one another, never touch, never talk. They just watch the tides crash into the jagged rocks below. Stay besides one another until the dream fades into morning’s dawn and wake up to begin their day without one another.

 

As long as he knows she’s out there somewhere it doesn’t matter if they are a million miles apart. They’re immortals and the world is only getting smaller. They’ll find each other again.

 


End file.
